Shining darkness
by Soulfire47
Summary: Remnant is a world that is both unique, and at the same time not. There are many other like it, all similar, but at the same time diferent. And it's in those small details where the biggest change is found. Join Ruby Rose, her team and her friends on an adventure through school, uncovering conspiracies and generaly living their lives. Watch as forgoten legends resurface to light.
1. Chapter 1

**Greetings to whoever it may concern, I'm Soulfire47 and this is a little project me and a friend by the name of Gman decided to do.**

 **While we both have some experience with writing, this is our first venture into the world of RUBY, so any helpful comments and constructive criticism is appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: RWBY is a property of Monty Oum and RoosterTeeth.**

* * *

 _Remnant, a world filled with darkness, one of many in the multiverse._

 _And just as in those uncountable other worlds, life struggles for it's right to exist here._

 _Humans and Faunus did what they could to carve out pieces of the world for them to use and live in, doing their best to hold back the darkness of the Grimm from retaking what they fought so hard to achieve._

 _The discovery of Dust, crystalised elemental force, made the fight easier. Harnessing this new power, new options of combat were created, eventually leading to the creation of specialised armed forces, trained and equipped specifically to combat the Grimm._

 _These new fighters, Huntsmen and Huntresses, are symbols of hope for the modern world, being trained at one of four special schools, the Huntsmen Academies, they receive the best training and equipment to allow others to keep living peacefully._

 _But peace only lasts so long…_

 _There are many worlds like Remnant, but it's in the small details, where the biggest change is found._

* * *

 **[Jaune Arc]**

* * *

"Oh dust make it stop!" Why did the airships cafeteria have to have those jam donuts? Their too good _not_ to eat! This was _not_ worth having to stand over a garbage can and puke them back up!

"Wow, look at him go. I didn't think a stomach could hold that much!" Joy. And people find my suffering _amusing_.

"Hey, buddy, I totally get that the trash bins are ugly and the inside could get a nicer paint job, but I don't think you can keep that up without injuring yourself. You gonna be ok, or do you need some help?" I felt a hand on my shoulder, and after managing to suppress the latest revolt my stomach has attempted, I turned to face the source of said voice.

The first thing I saw was a girl's face. She had blood red eyes, and pale skin, more than what I've seen in my life, but not outside of what I've heard other people talk about. Maybe she didn't get out very much? Her face, set in a small concerned frown as she studied me, was framed by bangs of silvery-grey hair, the rest of it was pulled into a ponytail that reached just past her shoulders.

She was wearing a casual looking, faded white V-neck shirt and comfortable looking pants that started as the same colour, gradually fading into a darker grey, turning completely black near her ankles. For shoes she was wearing black sneakers. She had a light purple belt with a metallic buckle which held her symbol, a tribal looking, vertically positioned most out of the ordinary for a civilian to wear was an open jacket she wore over her shirt, it that extended out the back like a coat or cape of some kind, it had the same colour pattern on the back, with the interiour being a deep crimson.

"I-i think it's starting to die down." I took the opportunity to wipe a bit of vomit off my chin, while trying not to think about the disgusting taste it left in my mouth. "Thank you for the offer though…" I trailed off as I realized I didn't know her name.

"Silvia, Silvia Shade." She introduced herself with a small smirk. "Good to know you aren't dying before you even get to Beacon, but… word of advice. Take a mint, I don't think that breath is legal for a tournament fight."

"I will definitely take that advice. I guess this wasn't the best way to make a first impression was it? The names Jaune Arc. Short and sweet." I grinned, hoping to at least salvage something from this.

"Sure." She said with a small laugh and a shake of her head. "Trust me when I say that I've seen worse impressions before. Anyway, see you around Jaune." And with that she turned around and walked off. As she did, it gave me a view of a pistol holster strapped to the belt on her left and a sword on her back, which partially obscured the large red print of her symbol on the back of her jacket.

As I stared at her walking off, I felt something brush against my side as a rather short girl ran past in the direction Silvia just left in. What stuck out to me was her hair. Half of it was pink, and the other half was brown, and she was carrying a parasol of all things. Who would carry one when it was so nice out? For a moment she looked behind herself at me and winked, shocking me that her eyes matched her hairstyle. As I dusted myself off, I felt something in my pocket that wasn't there before… a package of mints.

* * *

 **[Ruby Rose]**

* * *

'This is it, my first big step towards becoming a Huntress. Just be calm Ruby, don't panic, you can do this.' Those were my thoughts as I stepped off the Beacon Airbus and into the skydocks. Of course, having my sister by my side also helps.

Looking around I couldn't help but be speechless at the size of the Academy, and all those weapons everywhere...

"Yang, look over there! He's got a dagger-whip! And, ohh… IS THAT A SNIPER-SWORD!" As I tried to go get a closer look, I could feel Yang grabbing a hold of my hood, why? I'll never know, but the girl with said sword on her back kept looking at me weirdly for some reason. What? I just wanted to admire the weapon design.

I heard my sister sigh. "Ruby, you're doing it again…" But its sooo cool! "You nerding out over weapons in public."

… oh Dust why. Gotta hide so nobody can see me dying from embarrassment! Quick hood, hide me!

I could see from my safe place that Yang was shaking her head, I also faintly noticed someone chuckling nearby. Risking a peak, I saw the girl with a sword shaking her head with amused expression, she was mumbling something about kids under her breath… or she was asking for a rotten fish, I dunno.

"Come on Ruby, why don't you try to talk with the people instead of staring at their weapons?" Yang, you just don't understand...

"But… why would I talk to people when their weapons can already tell me so much?" I whined, while trying to assure my sweet Crescent Rose that yang didn't mean anything bad by it.

"Oh Ruby, you need to make some new friends eventually." Why is she always saying that? She already knows my answer to it.

"I don't need any new friends as long as you're here." After all, you and Crescent are my besties!

"Yeah, sorry, I see my friends coming, gotta dash, see you later!" Oh, what?! Uhh… that's so typical of her to do this.

"Wait, what? Yang! Where are you going? Why is the world spinning?" Why does this have to happen on my first day? At least it can't get any worse than this… wait, what is that white thing that's coming towards me?

* * *

 **[Jaune Arc]**

* * *

Not even an hour here and something's already exploded. Is that going to be a normal thing here? I really hope not. Well, at least this gives me a direction to go, I'm already lost, I can't make it worse by checking it out. As I got closer, I saw what looked like one girl berating another, before a third joined in.

"...The company that is also known for skirting the law with it's workforce and dealing with people of questionable status." This got a reaction from the girl in snow white clothing, as she begun sputtering in indignity.

My sense of self preservation says to stay out of this, but my curiosity… "Am I interrupting something?" Ok, from the angry look that girl is sending me this wasn't the smartest thing to do.

"Hey! What's all this shouting? And what was that explosion about?" I heard a familiar voice coming from nearby. Looking over my shoulder I saw Silvia coming to us with a slightly concerned look on her face. But when she spotted the white clothed girl that look of concern turn into a frown for some reason.

"Hmpf. And what is it to you?" The white girl said after briefly looking Silvia over, nodding to herself in apparent satisfaction. Well, at least she's not getting angry at me...

"What's it to me? Well, I heard an explosion, followed by shouting. I just went to see if someone was hurt is all." Silvia calmly said. Way more calmly than what I could do in that situation. And it also made the white girl even more angry.

"Why you..." The white girl growled out before somewhat calming down. Who knew girls could be this scary! "As you can clearly see, we are all just fine, no thanks to this reckless little hazard in red."

"It was an accident! And I already said that I'm sorry!" The hooded girl pleaded, practically acting like she had been caught with hand in the cookie jar.

"Good for you, but 'sorry' isn't going to help you on the battlefield." The white girl dismissed. "Now, as pleasant as this was, I can't waste my time on pointless arguments." And with that she walked off. I did my best to avoid eye contact, but Silvia kept looking after her, frowning and having this… weird expression I don't know what to think about.

"Well she was rude." Silvia quietly commented before looking at the girl in the red hood. "You ok there 'Little Red'?"

"Uhh, not that nickname again…" Ruby lamented "Oh, I mean… yeah! I'm fine. I…" She verbally backpedaled, trying to deny she acknowledged that nickname was a thing.

"Hey, hey, calm down. Just take a deep breath and let's start over." I tried to reassure her, and it appeared to be working "Feeling better now? Well, I'm Jaune."

"Ruby…"

"Name's Silvia."

As we each introduced ourselves, we slowly started moving towards the Academy proper.

"Hey, wait a minute. Aren't you the guy that threw up after eating all those doughnuts?" Ruby inquired as recognition crossed her face.

"Hey! They were too good to pass up… even if I do get motion sickness easily…"

"Don't worry about it too much Jaune. As I said before, there are worse first impressions than what you did." Silvia said sympathetically.

Just as Ruby was about to say something, there was an excited shout coming from where we just were. "It came from over here! Look Ren, I can see scorch marks! But… where is everyone? Don't tell me we missed everything!"

Yeah… we picked up the pace after hearing that, not wanting to meet the one so excited about things exploding.

Few minutes of fast walking and peeking back over our shoulders later, we found and entered the room we are supposed to gather in.

"Hey, Ruby! Come over here, there's still a spot left!" Someone shouted. Gazing in the direction of the shout, I saw a… rather endowed blond waving at us.

"Oh, sorry guys. My sister is calling me. I'll see you later!" Ruby dashed off at quite the high velocity, leaving just me and Silvia.

"Man, there's always something happening with you around. Catch you later Jaune." Silvia said and patted me on the shoulder as she disappeared into the crowd. And I really mean disappeared, she was there one moment and then she was just gone the next.

I just slumped my shoulders in defeat as my only two friends in this place left me alone. "Uhh, that's just great. What's the chance that I'll find another nice girl to hang out with." As I lamented, I noticed a flash of colour in me peripheral. Turning to my right, I saw that strange girl with multicoloured hair and eyes standing next to me and looking at me with unsettling smile.

I gulped. Why did it just feel like I tempted Fate?

* * *

 **[Yang Xiao Long]**

* * *

"How was your first day, sis?" I wonder what kinda trouble Ruby managed to get into this time?

"You mean after you abandoned me and I blew up?" She snapped back rather angrily. Oh joy. Did someone insult her precious Crescent rose?

"Seriously? You threw a tantrum?"

"What, no!" She immediately denied. "I meant it literally, if you go and look, you'll find the scorch marks… and maybe some melted ice? I don't know, I was too busy being in the middle of an explosion to notice!"

"Hey, slow down sis. Are you sure you aren't making that up?" If that had really happened, wouldn't someone have mentioned it by now?

"I tripped and messed up some rich girl's luggage. And then she started getting angry at me, before i sneezed and made stuff explode! And then she got even madder!" As my sister continued to babble on and on, I noticed someone behind her, glaring at her with a look that melt stone.

"YOU!" Oh wow, she's sure angry about something.

"Oh Dust shes back! SAVE ME YANG!" my sister literally tried to jump into my arms, leaving me no choice but to catch her.

"You're so lucky that your reckless stunt didn't break anything." Wait… oh joy, Ruby was serious.

"Wow, this has to be your new record Ruby." I teased my sis in an attempt to lighten the situation.

"Aw, come on, that was an accident." Ruby groaned as I put her back on the ground, before trying to back away from the angry girl. "And this was an accident too!"

The angry girl shoved some kind of pamphlet in Ruby's face, only getting a scared squeak from her. She then began spewing some legal speech, which I couldn't find in myself the strength to listen to it. Poor Ruby was just looking at her with this look of dumb not understanding.

She looked ready to continue, when the sound of a microphone being tapped and throat being cleared drew our attention to the stage, where the silver-haired figure of Professor Ozpin readied for a speech. "Ehm. I won't keep you in here for long. All of you came here in pursuit of knowledge, to better yourselves and develop new skills, and when you are finished here, you plan to put your life on the line for protection of others. But as I look upon you, I see only energy being wasted, unfocused and wild. You expect the knowledge you acquire here to help you overcome that, but in time you'll understand that knowledge by itself holds no such power. It's only up to you to take that first step."

As Professor Ozpin stepped away, his assistant and Deputy Headmistress, Glinda Goodwitch, took his place. "Tonight you'll gather in the Ballroom. Prepare yourselves for tomorrow's Initiation. You're free to explore and familiarise yourselves with the School for the rest of the day. You're dismissed." As she delivered her instructions, she strangely enough glanced on something, or someone, to our left a few times.

* * *

 **[later that night]**

* * *

After wandering the school for a few hours, raiding cafeteria for cookies for Ruby and an incident with a spider, giant scythe and janitor closet, we eventually made our way to the Ballroom. I had just put my things away and was making my way back to where me and Ruby had placed our sleeping bags, when I saw Ruby writing something down.

"It looks like a giant sleepover in here!" I observed, amusing myself by seeing if anyone wore embarrassing pajamas.

"Dad wouldn't like all the boys wandering around." Ruby admitted after a few moments.

"Well, I'm not our Dad." In the corner of my eye I noticed Juane and… what is he wearing!? Is that seriously a giant onesie? Taking a moment to get my laughter under control, I turn back to my sister. "What are you working on?"

"Just something to send back to Signal. My friends wanted to know how I'm doing and what's going on around Beacon." She sighed, obviously depressed about something.

"What's wrong?" I tried to get Ruby to talk about it, knowing she didn't do very well with bottling up emotions.

"It's dumb..." She muttered, obviously trying to avoid the conversation. Well, now that won't do.

"Aw come on Ruby, don't be like that. Just tell me what's bothering you." I tried again, thankful that Ruby isn't really all that stubborn, she would be a nightmare to deal with otherwise.

"I just feel so alone here. Your friends came with you to Beacon, but mine had to stay behind. And that girl, Weiss, is already mad at me! Oh… I don't know what to do." Rubly flopped onto her back.

"Ruby, that's not dumb, it's ok to be nervous, but you can't just lock up and avoid everyone. Besides, didn't you already make some new friends? Like Jaune over there, or that girl, Silvia, that you talked about. Speaking of which, where is she?" That question prompted Ruby to look around. We came across Jaune during our exploration, but I still have to see a hair of Silvia.

"I… don't see her anywhere." Ruby muttered as she continued looking, eventually stopping on a black haired girl with a bow in her hair. "Uh..."

"And who's that? I know she's not Silvia." Not to mention I swear I saw her bow twitch.

"I don't know. She was there when Weiss was yelling at me, but I didn't have the chance to talk to her yet." Oh? Perhaps I can convince sis to make a friend.

"Well, you can do it now!" I said as I took a hold of Ruby's hand, fully intending to drag her over to the girl in black. "Let's just go over and say-"

"Hello!" Came an interruption in the form of a short and energetic girl with orange hair. Her sudden appearance shocked me enough to let go of Ruby, who fell down on her sleeping bag.

"Nora, what did I tell you?" A boy in green caught up with the ball of energy now known as Nora.

"Aw, come on Ren, they're fine." Nora loudly proclaimed as she waved Ren's concerns away. "Anyway, I'm Nora and this is Ren! Someone told us you know something about that explosion that happened outside, well, do you?!" Oh sweet Dust she's worse than Ruby on a sugar high!

"I… er… what?" Me and my sister replied in confusion.

"The explosion, the big 'BOOM!' that happened at the skydocks! Do you know something?!" She repeated herself, now suddenly up in my face.

"Uh..." I uttered dumbly. When I finally processed what Nora asked, all I could do was look at confused Ruby and weakly point at her.

Just as Nora looked at Ruby, and her face lit up with even brighter, and slightly crazed smile, another interruption showed itself.

"What's with all this racket? Can't you read the mood? People are tired." It was a girl, her pale skin looked almost bone white in the low light, and her blood red eyes, coupled with her silvery hair gave me a pretty good idea of who I'm looking at. At the same time as I was studying her, her slightly irritated frown changed into a look of recognition as she looked over our group. "Oh, hey Ruby."

"Hi, Silvia." And that just confirmed it. Apparently, the presence of another friendly face gave Ruby enough of a push to recover from Nora's excitability. "Where were you all day? We were all around the school, looking for you."

"Oh? You were? Sorry about that, I was just looking around, finding where everything is, trying to get into the Headmaster's office via the vent system." Silvia listed off what she… wait.

"Eh… sorry, what was that last one?" I asked, trying to make sure I didn't mishear what she said.

"I said I was looking for the Headmaster's office." She replied as if she said nothing wrong, before grinning a knowing grin.

"Ok… so, you're the mysterious Silvia that Ruby told me about. I have to say, words really don't do you justice. I'm Yang, by the way." She was messing with me!

"Ouuu… your eyes look scary!" And before any of us could so much us blink, Nora wan in Silvia's face, looking her straight in the eyes. "You are Silvia, Right? Well, I'm Nora! That over there is Ren. I just have to say, that you have one of the scariest eyes I've ever seen!"

"Err… thanks?" Silvia looked very unsure about how to respond, Not to mention a bit uncomfortable. "Your eyes look… energetic?"

Before any of us could react on the odd exchange, another, familiar voice sounded first. Growling with an undertone of pure irritation.

"Would you mind keeping it down? Some of us want to sleep already!" Turning to the side, I saw none other than the Weiss Queen herself. Damn that was a good one, I'll have to use that sometime.

"Oh, joy." Silvia groaned as she recognised the voice. Her face went through several expressions, surprise, resignation, understanding and finally a small smirk as she turned around to face Weiss. "Do you really have to do this?"

"Do what?" Weiss asked… well, more like demanded an answer.

"Yell at everyone? Seriously, you are louder than any of us here… except Nora, but this is probably her default setting." Silvia said calmly, the amount of effort it took to keep any negativity from her voice must be impressive. All that only seemed to make Weiss more angry.

"How dare you! People like you should really be taught their place. Who even are you?!" Wow, she really was fuming. But Silvia didn't seem affected by it in the least, in fact, she actually looked to be amused by it.

"Who am I? That's easy, I'm Silvia. Silvia Shade. It's such a _pleasure_ to meet you." Silvia's introduction had a rather strange effect on Weiss. She was visibly surprised for a second, before she narrowed her eyes and started practical scanning Silvia from head to toe. When she was done, she seemed strangely satisfied, I really have no idea what that was all about. "Now, if you'll all excuse me, I'm missing some sleep. Goodnight guys." And with that Silvia walked off before any of us could react.

"Hmph. Just keep it down from now on." Was Weiss' reply as she too left, looking after Silvia the whole way.

"Come Nora, we should go too." Ren pleaded to the hyperactive redhead.

"But Reeeeen!" Was what she whined in response.

Sucking in a deep breath, he tried to reason with her. "You can talk with her tomorrow, it's already late and if you take too long, you'll just oversleep in the morning and miss the pancakes."

"Not the pancakes!" She immediately bolted towards what I presumed was her sleeping bag and literally dived for it.

I yawned, tired from all this excitement."We should probably turn in too. Goodnight Ruby."

"Yeah, ok. Goodnight Yang." And with that, we both went to sleep.

* * *

 **Writing this was a heck of an experience, that I can tell you.**

 **Now, depending on how popular this might be, there may be some questions about some things. Update schedule for one. Well, there isn't one yet, I hope for once a week, but it's not only dependant on me and only time will tell how it all works out.**

 **Once again, this has been a blast, thank you all for reading, hope you come back for more… well, I hope we manage to write more.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello once again, it's Soulfire and Gman bringing you another chapter. To be honest, I wasn't all that sure about this when we started, but now I can say that the satisfaction of working on this makes it worth it.**

 **Also happy that we managed to get this one out a week after the first one, I don't know if we'll manage every time, but we can all hope.  
**

 **Disclaimer: RWBY is a property of Monty Oum and RoosterTeeth.**

* * *

 **[Silvia Shade]**

* * *

It was the next day, the day of the Initiation. I was slowly getting up from my sleeping bag after a good night sleep, well, as much sleep as I was able to get with all the racket yesterday. I went through my morning rituals and packed up my stuff, as I was finishing up I saw that Nora was pestering Ren about something, he didn't seem to mind though. He must have more patience than the rest of Beacon combined to put up with her constantly.

After I put my stuff away, I made my way over to the cafeteria. Taking my time with a… decent stack of pancakes, which I completely drowned in syrup, I like sweet things, sue me. I looked around the room to gauge the candidates. Most were nervous, some more so than others, which was good, they weren't overconfident. I saw a few trying to play it off with false bravado, and, unfortunately, a couple were just cockily boasting… and is that guy over there… licking the underside of a plate? Uhh, that's just disgusting. Looking for the people I already met to get that image out of my head, I saw Nora still talking at breakneck speeds, Jaune was alone and looked weirdly happy for it, well, good for him. Weiss wasn't even here and Ruby looked to be sitting in a way that she was hidden behind Yang from Nora's view. Yang seems to be used to it and Nora wasn't paying attention to them anyway.

When I was done with my breakfast, I put the tray away and chose a path out of the room to put me in each of my friend's view as I waved at them as I passed, making my way to the locker room to retrieve my weapons. I was already finished with inspection on my pistol, Banshee, and started on my sword, Phantom, when I noticed Ruby eyeing me, or rather, my weapons with unbridled curiosity. With all the excitement and exploration yesterday, I completely forgot that Ruby was interested in my sword. Yeah, I can see why she would have social trouble.

Getting an… interesting idea, I slowly made my way towards her and Yang, pretending to inspect the blade along the way. Once I was close enough, I spun the sword around in my hand and held it straight at the ground, the tip touching the ground. "So… like what you see Ruby?"

"Wha- you… Ah!" Wow, she's as red as her hood! And Yang's grin when she realised what happened wasn't all that reassuring.

"Oh? Were you ogling her goods again sis?" Yang smirked as she added fuel to the fire.

"Y-yang! Stop it!" Poor Ruby looked like she just wanted to disappear and avoid the awkward humiliation that was occurring.

"You are so easy to mess with, wouldn't you say, Silvia?" Yang looked to me for support, but the look in her eyes unnerved me a bit.

"Yang! It's not funny!" Ruby whined.

"Actually, it kinda is." I admitted with and chuckled when she started to pout. After sharing a look with Yang and calming a bit, I decided to not mess with Ruby anymore… at least for now. "Hey, Ruby? How about I let you take a look at my Phantom when we make it through Initiation?" I gestured ty my sword as I put it back in the sheath on my back.

"Oh, really? You aren't going to make anymore fun of me?" Ruby grumbled a little upset. Yang hardened her gaze at me in response.

"No, no, honest. You were interested in it since you saw it yesterday, the least I can do after teasing you like this is to let you take a look at it." I said, including a small smile for added impact, bringing an excited expression to Ruby's face and somewhat appeasing Yang.

"Well, that's nice." I really don't like the tone Yang is using. "Ruby? I think you might have forgotten a clip for Crescent Rose in your bag, why don't you go check?" Ok, I really don't like the way she said that. And Ruby's nervous look showed that she understood perfectly that Yang wanted to discuss something without her there.

"O-Ok! I'll go and take a look!" Ruby squeaked and ran off, leaving me at Yang's mercy. I mean, there were other people around, but they weren't exactly paying attention.

"Er, Yang? What do you want?" I asked with a neutral voice after partially suppressing my nervousness. That probably wasn't the best move to make though, seeing as Yang narrowed her eyes, but old habits are really hard to get rid of.

"First of, I have to say that I kinda like you. You're easy to get along with, you joke around a bit but you're not a jerk. Ruby seems to like you too, she talked about you a lot when we were walking around yesterday. You'll make a good friend for her, but don't make fun of her. I'll let it slide this time, since she really is a bit too much obsessed with weapons and you didn't push it too far." Yang laid down in a serious voice. "So, are we on the same page? She already had a 'friend' betray her trust and make fun of her before, I don't want her to retreat into herself again if it were to repeat."

I wasn't expecting that. I really wasn't expecting that. But thinking about it, Ruby's withdrawn public personality and general unease with social interaction made more sense after knowing this. It also showed that Yang seemed to trust me at least somewhat to share this with me. Well, it seems that there is only one thing for me to do.

"Alright." I said and took a deep breath, schooling my features into a serious expression and keeping the joking, amused tone from my voice. "I wasn't planning on hurting her. You are correct in saying that I tend to joke around a bit, but I don't push to hurt someone, or make fun of someone publicly. Thanks for trusting me with this, and I think it's kinda touching that you look out for your little sis." I really hope that I answered correctly. Yang let me wonder and stew in my nervousness for a few more seconds before grinning.

"I knew you were fine." She said in a jovial tone and goodnaturedly punched me in the shoulder, and it kinda hurt.

"Ow… you're stronger than you look." I said with a wince, rubbing my hurt shoulder.

"I get that a lot, and at least you know what will happen if you betray Ruby's friendship." That's a bit worrying, but damn, well played Yang. I pity whoever decides to cross Yang's path.

" _Attention first-year students! The Initiation is scheduled to begin in 20 minutes, please make your way to the Beacon Cliff in a timely manner. I repeat, all first-year students report to Beacon Cliff for Initiation."_ The slightly distorted voice of Professor Goodwitch rang out from the school intercom system. I'm kinda hesitant to go and meet her face to face though. She kept glancing at me during yesterday's Orientation, which really unnerved me at the time, but when nothing came from it afterward… well, I just have a bad feeling, and that's rarely let me down before.

"Well, that's my cue. I need to go track down Ruby. See you at the cliff!" Yang blurted out before dashing off in search of her sister.

I had to take a few seconds to let that entire encounter sink in, I mean, I heard of older siblings interrogating their younger sibling's potential romantic partner, but to go through a version of it when talking just about regular friendship? Well that's a first.

When I was done contemplating the reaches of a sibling bond, I elected to slowly make my way to the Beacon Cliff. Just before exiting the room, I took a look around, catching a sight of a hilarious scene of Jaune panicking and being tended to by a girl with long red hair and bronze armor, with Weiss silently fuming nearby. The red haired girl looked familiar, but I couldn't see her face and therefore wasn't able to identify her… oh well. I wonder where Ruby ran off to…

* * *

 **[Ruby Rose]**

* * *

"...So that's how I discovered the wonders of mixing mayple syrup with oatmeal. Still don't understand why she called me crazy though. It was tasty!" That was… Is this typical for Nora? I've never seen someone with so much energy all the time! At least it's easy to talk to her since she does all the talking for me.

"Thats… interesting." I managed to blurt out. Oh gosh, what do i say now! Eyeing her weapon, it came to me. "So, uh, how did you decide on that weapon?" behind her, I saw Ren's eyes widen in horror. Nora seemed to immediately deflate at that question.

"I… I'd rather not talk about that…" Oh gosh… I've made a terrible mistake, haven't I?

Before I could even try to apologize, we were interrupted by Silvia poking her head from around the corner. "Hey guys, why are… is it a bad time?"

"Nope, everythings A-OK!" Nora responded, once more energetic.

"Ok… good to hear that… anyway. Ruby, Yang was looking for you, and we should all get to the Beacon Cliffs for the Initiation."

"Oh! Well, thanks for telling us. Will you go there with us?" I really wanted to know what Yang talked to her about.

"No, sorry, I'm taking the scenic route." Silvia said nervously, ducking back behind the corner.

Yang found us shortly after Silvia left and it didn't take long to get there after that. Glancing around, it seemed everyone was anxious for the initiation to actually start. Silvia really took her time and didn't show up until several minutes before it started, almost not making it in time. "Ehm! Quiet down a bit, if you would." Professor Ozpin's voice quickly brought any ongoing conversations to a stop. "All of you have trained for years in anticipation of this moment, a chance to prove to the world, as well as to yourselves that you are ready for the next step towards your future." With that he stepped back and Professor Goodwitch continued from there.

"The Initiation will take place in the Emerald Forest. And as one of the base principles of our Academy is to teach and encourage teamwork, it's also here where you will be sorted into teams." After saying her piece, she stepped down to allow Ozpin to continue.

"The teams you will be placed in, you will stay in for the duration of your stay at Beacon. So it would do you well to get along with your teammates." Oh. That… please let me wind up with Yang.

"With all of that said, the first person you make eye contact with after you land will become your partner for the team assignment." Aww, that's not fair!

"After you've met up with your partner, continue to the northern part of the forest. There are Creatures of Grimm lurking around every corner and they will inevitably cross your path, don't show any hesitation when facing them, for a momentary pause can endanger not only yourself, but the people around you as well. Your progress will be monitored for the entire duration of your Initiation, but the staff tending to the equipment was instructed to not interfere. At the end of the path you'll find ruins of an abandoned temple and inside are stored several relics. Each pair's objective is to retrieve one of them and then return to the top of the cliff." He paused for a moment, taking a long sip of his coffee before checking something on his scroll

"Remember that spots for teams are therefore limited, so you best move fast to secure your place at the Academy... however! That doesn't excuse you to target other students, as future Huntsmen and Huntresses, it'll be your duty to protect others, and sabotaging or endangering others to assure your own, personal success isn't an acceptable method. When the last relic is recovered, you will be notified by your scrolls to vacate the forest." He once more paused, leaving me nervous.

"Now, if you don't have any questions, I suggest you prepare a landing strategy." He fiddled with something on his scroll, and there was a loud 'click' beneath my feet. "Oh, and one last thing. You better be done by the time Sun sets, I hear that it get's very dangerous after dark." Dangerous?! What could be more dangerous than Grimm?! Oh gosh is it a super-Grimm?

I couldn't think about it for too long, as I heard a click to my right and saw some guy with green mohawk get launched into the forest by the pad he was standing on… the same that we are all standing on… he's launching us into the forest from up here?! Is that what he meant by telling us to get a landing strategy ready?! Why can't I just have a normal teacher for once? Quick, how can I safely land? Springboard off of a tree branch? No, not with this speed. Tuck and roll? That one substitute teacher did say something about momentum to inertia transfer and ker-splat probability inversion… but then again, he was using live grenades to motivate his assistant… probably not a good idea to take him too seriously. Stop myself with Gravity rounds? That could work.

Before I could think of anything else, I was already flying through the air, looking ahead, I saw Yang using Ember Celica to fly even further and I noticed Silvia just free-fall below the treetops and out of sight, which was followed by a pained squeals of a Boarbatusk and billowing of Grimm smoke from her location. She sure works quick. Quickly angling myself, I prepared to swap my ammo and use Gravity rounds to slow myself down enough for a landing, but smacking into an unfortunate bird threw me off for too long for it to work. Thinking quickly, I used my normal rounds to slow as much as possible before plunging into the branches. Seeing one thick enough, I hooked Crescent Rose around it to swing myself a bit further and slow down enough to land. Feeling good for figuring out a new landing strategy so quickly, I went for what Yang would call 'style points' and landed in a crouch.

Running in the direction of the distinctive sound of Ember Celica firing, thoughts crossed my mind on who I would want to be with if Yang wasn't an option. Weiss was scary, she kept shouting at me, so definitely not her, Juane was… well Juane. It almost felt like everything was out to get him. The silence would probably drive me crazy if I wound up with that one girl who never talks. Maybe Nora?

"GAH!" My musings were interrupted when I was suddenly thrown on the ground. Being slammed into by something at high speeds is so not fun. Is this what Yang always complains about? Shaking away the dizziness I looked around to see what hit me, only to hear a groan directly behind me. Slowly turning my head I saw two brightly coloured, turquoise orbs staring directly at me. This sight was accompanied by a familiar voice.

"Hey, you're not Ren."

"AIEEEE!" next thing I knew I was hanging from a tree branch several feet up. Nora was looking at me and trying to suppress a giggle.

"That looks fun!" Well it's not! ...And my cloaks stuck too. "Are you stuck?" I nodded in embarrassment. "Dont worry, I know what to do!" She drew her weapon and morphed it into its hammer form.

"Nora… what are you do-" The sound of wood splintering and the tree shaking violently interrupted my worry.

"Heeeere kitty kitty kitty!" Oh my gosh is she trying to bring down the tree! The second strike caused the tree o creak, and the third brought it, and me, tumbling down.

"NORA!? Why did you do that!?" I was honestly reconsidering my life's choices right now. Nora was just plain crazy! Pulling myself free if the branches, and making sure my clothes were not ripped, I saw Nora staring to the east, before she grabbed me and dragged me along.

"I think I saw something over there!" what that something eventually turned out to be, was a cliff. "Hey, Ruby, look!" Nora shouted excited pointing to something past a cliff's edge. Looking down, I saw a Nevermore circling below. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That's a long drop?" I guessed.

"No silly, this is what we're going to do…"

* * *

 **[Yang Xiao Long]**

* * *

After landing exactly like instructed by that awesome substitute teacher, well... minus all the running away from live grenades, I slowly made my way through the forest. As I walked, I was deciding if it was a good idea to get that extra distance. It got me closer to the ruins, but it also put me further away from Ruby. Hmm… I'll just slow down a bit and make noise, I mean, she'll catch up eventually, right? So, going roughly North and calling out every once in awhile, I was starting to get bored, Professor said that there were Grimm everywhere, but I have yet to see one. I mean, it's good to not be afraid for me life, but at least a little excitement wouldn't hurt.

As I was about to start punching trees to not go mad with boredom, I heard rustling from nearby bushes. I almost dived into it to see what it is, but I was able to stop myself, as I didn't want to headbutt whatever it was. I quickly made my way to the bush, pulled it apart and called out.

"Ruby, are you hiding in here?" She wasn't. Instead I found a couple of Ursas, one was laying on the ground, while the other was scratching it's back. "Hey, could you point me in the direction of a girl wearing a red hood?" I had to dive out of the way of their charge, but I needed a way to amuse myself, did talking to Grimm make me look crazy? Probably. Did it help me from actually going crazy? Debatable, but at least it makes me feel better.

"You know, politely refusing to help is also an option!" Seriously, I know that they are mindless monsters but that was just rude. I had to duck under another swipe as they oh so rudely kept trying to kill me.

"Oh wow. You are really bad at this talking thi..n...g…" Is that… what I think it is? Did that… monster just cut some of my hair? No one… touches… "NO ONE TOUCHES THE HAIR!" I launched myself at that monster and started punching and punching and punching, until there was nothing more left to punch from that bastard bear. Turning around I couldn't help but whistle at the scorched ground and splintered trees left in my wake. Angered growling from the side reminded me of the other Grimm.

"Alright, so you're the next in line?" I said as I cracked my knuckles, who would have thought that smashing a Grimm through several trees, while also lighting it on fire would be so therapeutic. As I prepared to take my time with this one, a black blur and a slicing sound cut the Grimm down, making it fall face first on the ground, with a dark haired, amber eyed girl, wearing a black bow in her hair, standing on the back of the downed Ursa.

"I had that one, you know that, right?" I was having fun kicking those Ursa's rears, and then she comes along and ruins it… bummer.

"If you think so. I'm Blake." Dayum did she have an intense stare.

"Yang. You wouldn't happen to have seen my sister, would you? Wears a lot of red, has a hooded cape she never puts down, blows other people up occasionally?" I was hopeful she could have seen where Ruby went, just because I already found a partner doesn't mean that we still can't end up in the same team. The teams are made up of four people after all. Blake merely shook her head in the negative. We spent a few minutes wandering, Blake shooting down a few rat sized nevermores as we walked, before the ground started shaking. "Uh… Blake? What was that just now?"

"I… I'm not sure, but we should probably hurry." Almost immediately after Blake said that, the shaking was replaced with a loud, insectile screech and human screaming. Unable to find which direction it was coming from, we started running in the direction the temple was. The screaming stopped after a few seconds, but the screech sounded again every once in awhile, and it seemed to be getting closer... or we were going closer to it.

It didn't take us long before we found a clearing, we put some distance between us and the treeline before stopping to take a breather and think about the situation. As I took a look around, I saw some kind of broken down, old stone circle of some kind.

"Hey, Blake? Look over there. You think that might be the temple we're looking for?" I pointed out, and a I swear she tensed up like a startled cat, before she calmed down.

"That's not much of a temple."

"Let's just check it out." I said (dismissively?) and went over to the stone ruins. Blake just rolled her eyes and followed after me. It wasn't anything big or awesome like in the movies. Just a half crumbled circle of stone with a few pedestals inside. On some of those pedestals were-

"Are those Chess pieces?" Blake was right, they were. Of all the things, why chess pieces?

"Looks like it, which one should we pick?" I'm curious, how will this affect how teams are formed? Maybe it's something to do with matching black and white pieces?

"Doesn't matter to me, take whichever you want." Jeeze. Was she emotionally stunted when she was a kid or something? I've seen next to nothing out of her yet.

"Hmm… in that case I want… a nice little pony!" In reality, it was the only one still there that was missing its opposite, so the odds are whoever had said opposite was probably good… although I think I got Blake to snicker!

As we were walking out of the small temple ruins, we saw another pair of students just exiting a treeline, their white and green clothes let me know immediately who they were.

"Well, hello there… Ren was it? And… Weiss princess." I called out to the two, taking a second to recall Ren's name. Weiss' name came out more like a growl than anything for some reason, which she didn't seem to like… good. Blake's eyes seemed to narrow slightly at hearing Weiss' name, but it was so faint it could have just been my imagination. I mean, is it possible for them to have some kind of history together? And I don't mean the fun kind.

Ren just nodded to me, it was either supposed to be his form of greeting, or he was telling me that I got his name right. Either way, he went straight for the temple ruins, only pausing when he was passing us. He turned to Blake and opened his mouth.

"Lie Ren." That was it, he only said his name and nothing else, being around that hyper girl, Nora I think, must have really messed him up. It took Blake a few seconds to process what just happened and by the time she responded the silence was starting to border on awkward.

"I'm Blake, Blake Belladonna." Yeah, this is definitely awkward, Ren just stared for a few more seconds before nodding and continuing on his way to the temple. If this is what extended exposure to Nora does to people, I really pity whoever ends up stuck with her.

While Ren was picking a piece, Weiss was busy being angry and looking us up and down like if she was evaluating us for something. Whatever it was, it was unnerving. Not a minute later came a distraction in the form of a returning Ren. He was examining a white rook, but he seemed bothered by something.

"Have either of you seen Nora?" I think I Picked up the faintest hint of concern in his voice, which I found reasonable considering what I've seen of Nora. Dust knows what she gets up to unattended, and dust forbid she actually find my sister.

"Er… no? Why, are you worried about her?" I asked, still a bit on edge.

"You could say that, she should have either already found us, or made enough noise to be found. But… nothing." Okay, when you say it like that… yeah, when you haven't heard from the crazy loud girl, it means either something's wrong, or something BIG is in the works.

"No, sorry, didn't see her anywhere. But did you see Ruby? She doesn't really do well with people she doesn't know yet." With how fast she can move, I would have thought she would have found this place by now...

"No, we didn't see your sister anywhere either." ...Please don't let Ruby be hurt.

As our quick little discussion came to a close, I noticed a faint noise in the air, it almost sounded like… screaming?

"Does anyone else hear that? Where is it coming from?" And apparently it was enough to get Weiss to stop eying us, well, more like me, as if we were some low quality meat.

"Guys?" Blake's questioning tone caught our attention. We looked to her and saw that she was pointing at something in the sky. Something far away, almost completely black and heading straight for us at a decent speed. That was a bit worrying. As it drew closer I managed to pick up on a few things.

First that it's a decently sized Nevermore, second, that it's shrieking in pain, and third being that there is another voice screaming from it's direction and coming closer with it. We were all ready to pull out and activate our weapons when we finally made out what that other voice was screaming.

"...ayday, mayday, we're going down! NORA! How do you land this thing!?" At the sound of the familiar voice I was a bit relieved to know Ruby wasn't being mauled somewhere in the forest, but when the content of what she said caught up with me…

"Oh no..." You took the words right out of my mouth Ren.

"Scatter!" Blake's shout brought me from my musings about the coming apocalypse, to see the Nevermore on a collision course with us. Not wanting to be flattened, we all began running in different directions,going as far as to jump away from the impact to get away in time.

As the Nevermore ploughed into the ground and dug an impressive trench in the clearing, a few things happened. The temple ruins collapsed even more from the force of something this big falling this close. It's head got torn off and flew in Weiss' direction. Crescent Rose, that was still stabbed into the head tore free and nearly took off Weiss' head if she didn't roll away from it in time. And finally, a dazed Ruby and energetic Nora tumbled down from Nevermore's back.

"See! I told you we'd be fine." Nora spoke like nothing happened, not even brushing herself off.

"Nora. What did I tell you?" Ren approached Nora as he was the first of us four to recover. Me and Blake not far behind and Weiss was still on the ground, only a step away from hyperventilating as she had Crescent Rose stabbed into the ground just inches from her neck, the red scythe looming over her as if it was deciding to fall on her and play guillotine.

"Don't eat the pancake batter?" Nora asked innocently.

"The other thing." Ren said in completely neutral tone. If this is normal with her… poor Ruby. Speaking of Ruby, she looked unharmed, thankfully, but she was just laying on the ground, staring at the sky with this goofy smile on her face.

"Oh, don't go Grimm riding without supervision." Okay, that's happened before!? Just what does this girl get up to!?

"And what did you do?" Did his eye just twitch?

"I had Ruby supervise me!" Nora responded excitedly without a thought, that incidentally brought the attention of others to her.

"...alright, you win this one." I feel your pain Ren, too often did Ruby get away with a technicality and we always had that exact same sigh as you now.

"Is your sister ok?" Even Blake was showing emotion at the events that transpired.

"Probably? I mean, when she first got the idea in her head to become a Huntress, she had this dream to get a pet Beowolf and ride it into battle. She grew out of it eventually, but this as close as you get, maybe even better… she's probably just enjoying the moment." It's true. When Ruby wouldn't shut up about it, we got Zwei to quiet her down. She was a bit upset that she can't ride Zwei into battle, but when dad got him combat trained, she was excited even more. As we waited for her to get over… whatever she was in, I couldn't help but think we are forgetting about something.

"So cool..." Huh, looks like Ruby is coming out of it.

"Hey, sis. You finally with us again?" Ruby startled at turned to face me, blushing in embarrassment at being caught. "Well, I have to agree that your entrance was actually kinda cool, but you still need to work on the landing."

"Don't tell that to me. Nora was the one piloting, all I did was let her use Crescent Ro..." Ruby started grumbling a response when she stopped and her eyes widened. She began to frantically look around. "Crescent Rose! Where is she? Did you see her?"

"Oh? Yeah I saw. Your scythe flew over in that direction, see? There it… is..." Oh, so that's what I was forgetting. Weiss was still lying immobile under it, there were some tears sliding out of her eyes, probably from being so scared, but all that fear was already in the process of changing into an undying rage, her gaze boring into us, or more specifically, into Ruby.

Ruby being Ruby was either completely unaware, or just so focused on getting to her weapon that she just plain didn't notice. She only noticed that Weiss was almost beheaded when she pried Crescent Rose from the ground and hugged it.

"This isn't going to end well." Yeah, I can see that Blake.

"Weiss! I'm so sorry for this! You see we were-" Ruby was running her mouth trying to placate a fuming Weiss.

"YOU! You! You reckless little brat! You almost got me killed with that idiotic stunt! Who even would be stupid enough to ride a Grimm! You shouldn't even be here, so do everyone a favor and stand out of our way before-" Ok, that's enough! I get that she almost died because of something Ruby had a hand in, but this is just too much. Poor Ruby is on a verge of collapse, no one does that to Ruby and get's away with it.

"HEY! Stop yelling at my sister! What did she do to you for you to hate her this much!?" Poor little Ruby took the chance to hide behind me to get away from that angry brat who calls herself an heiress.

"What did she do!? She's irresponsible! Reckless! A menace to society! And she just almost got me killed! She shouldn't be here, she's already getting in the way!" Oh dust, Ruby's making that about to cry noise!

"THAT'S IT! You being a self entitled brat gives you no excuse to just yell at someone you don't like! Did you forget that Aura is a thing!? You need the reactions to activate it if you want to survive in the first place!" Should have just left you pinned there you ungrateful piece of-

"How dare you! Telling me that I'm the one in the wrong! Why I'll have you-" I was about to punch her face in for that attitude when she was interrupted.

"STOP!" Ren's sudden shout startled us all into silence. I didn't even think he had it in him. "If you continue like this, you'll just bring a horde of Grimm down on us." Despite being angry enough for my Semblance to leak through, I could still see the point in his argument. That didn't mean that we were done though.

"This isn't over." I growled out at Weiss as she stared back. I tried to calm myself a bit and started comforting Ruby.

It didn't take long to calm her down, she was thankfully only crying from the shock of someone being this openly hostile. Ruby might be nice enough to eventually try to patch it up with Weiss, but I won't let this go that easily. I was just about to suggest we move away, when we heard gunshots from nearby, followed by shouting. A second later there was a loud smack and Jaune flew out of the trees. Not long after the gunshots stopped and a tall redhead in bronze armor jogged to Jaune. Not a second later there was a really loud racket coming from a different direction, followed shortly by four people running into the clearing. There was Silvia, that strange quiet girl with multicolored hair, a guy with a green mohawk and a guy with a really dark, blue hair all combed back. What got my attention was the expression those guys had. They looked… scared, and not normal scared, but like they just saw something very messed up, and the way Silvia is looking into the forest isn't reassuring in the slightest.

* * *

 **[Ozpin]**

* * *

"It would appear that Miss Schnee has developed intense hatred for Miss Rose, if her current actions are to be of any indication. I don't think they are even capable of cooperation at this point." (Glynda)

"I wouldn't be so sure about that. Yes, Miss Schnee is currently beyond any rational thought when it comes to that incident, that is true. But they may yet surprise us." Glynda gave me a disapproving glare.

"If you believe so sir. I still can't believe that Miss Valkyrie would be so reckless as to ride a Nevermore. I fear for safety of other students if she continues with such behaviour." As much as you dislike it, it's a prime example of outside the box thinking.

"Hmm… You'd be surprised." I don't think anyone noticed the subtle corrections Miss Valkyrie made to the flight path of that Nevermore. On top of it, despite crashing at such a speed, both her and Miss Rose were perfectly unharmed, while the Nevermore was killed. No, they were perfectly safe during their ride and they avoided needles confrontation with Grimm along the way, on top of not having to navigate in a dense forest. That was no coincidence, that girl is not as she seems at first glance.

"What about Miss Shade and her partner? Why did you even allow them entry?" Oh bother… not this conversation again...

"Both of their applications checked out without any problems. Everything was verified as the truth. And despite Miss Neopolitan's… unnerving tendencies, I believe it would be better if they were here, where we can watch them, than let them wander the world unsupervised. Who knows what would happen if they were picked up by the other side. And we can't exactly deny someone entry just because we are suspicious about them without any evidence, when all of their paperwork is in order." I recited for the third time today.

"And how do we know that didn't happen already? You saw how Miss Shade looks, her emblem. You can't dismiss that as a coincidence." How many times have we done this song and dance? Are you really against Miss Shade that much?

"Glynda, we both know that _she_ would never openly advertise herself like this. Yes, Silvia Shade is a mystery, but one that has to be approached calmly with a level head, and it will be solved in time." Unsaid was the warning of 'least we provoke her and drive her into the enemy's hands.'

"Then we do nothing and wait for her to give us some sort of clue? We can't endanger our students by waiting until a potential enemy makes their move." Glynda, Glynda, Glynda, who would make a move in as school full of Hunters and Hunters-in-training?

"I didn't say that we do nothing. We talk with her, observe her, get to know who she is. She has done nothing wrong so far, so no need to be so hostile." I pointed out, which caused her to grumble and fume.

"Very well… If they pass the Initiation, I won't treat them differently because of their… questionable background." Glynda finally relented.

"That's all I can ask. Speaking of background, did you find anything about their past?" I inquired.

"Yes, but it's not much. Most searches for Miss Neopolitan turned up negative. Scattered sightings in Atlas and Vale. Nothing from more than seven years ago." Glynda stated.

"Interesting. What about Miss Shade?" I asked in curiosity, now Miss Shade was an enigma.

"Suspicious to say the least. She has no record in any official combat school. Any of her personal records, as well as anything else on the Shade family is classified by Atlassian Military and from what little I was able to find out, she should still be in Atlas." Atlassian Military is involved? It appears that James has been keeping some secrets.

"That does indeed sound suspicious, but not for the reasons one would think. It seems that the good General will be getting a call in the near future." And if nothing else, questioning him how Miss Shade managed to sneak out of Atlas without him noticing should provide at least somewhat amusing.

"Why am I not surprised… What are we going to do about the two boys that are with Miss Shade? The trauma they just endured can be career ending at such a young age." She pointed out.

"We give them a reason to continue and offer them the use of our counseling program. That is the reason we have one after all." I sighed. Glynda can be so single minded when something has her worked up. "Despite the numerous safety measures, our school still contains dangers. And however much we may wish to deny it, accidents still can happen at any time. All students know this, they were told the risks when they decided to sign up. That's just the way things are."

I used the lull in the conversation to observe the group of our future students. After exchanging glances with Mister Ren, Miss Valkyrie made her way towards the chess pieces. Unfortunately, Glynda chose this moment to get my attention again.

"Sir, the perimeter sensors have detected an intrusion into our airspace." That's strange, Grimm don't usually travel in groups big enough to trigger the perimeter sensors. And it appears that Miss Valkyrie has already picked a piece when I wasn't looking, well, at least it will be a surprise for when they finish.

"What is it? A flock of adventurous Griffins? A wandering Skyray?" I quipped.

"... no sir. It's worse. It's _him_." I faintly registered the sound of my mug shattering on the ground. I quickly checked the feed myself and couldn't believe my eyes. _He_ is early, _he_ is never early. But why? The intense negativity required for this… My eyes widened as I looked back at the feed from the temple, at the group of future students, some of which are brimming with negativity.

"Oh no… Glynda! Call the others, we're about to have our hands full. The Ace is here."


	3. Chapter 3

**[Jaune Arc]**

* * *

That was crazy. This entire place is crazy! I didn't think that fighting monsters would be this hard, I just got smacked around while Pyrrha did all the work. Thank Dust for this Aura stuff though, it's amazing.

"Jaune, are you alright?" Pyrrha inquired, sounding worried.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I moped, I had barely achieved anything yet other than being a distraction.

"That's a relief. You did a great job distracting those Grimm, if you hadn't taken their attention, it would have taken us much longer to defeat them." She thinks I did that on purpose? And that it helped? Well, at least I did something right. Getting up from the ground, I noticed other people in the clearing we ran into, as well as a pile of rubble in the middle.

"Pyrrha, you think this might be where the relics are?" I asked, hoping there wouldn't be any traps.

"Probably? If not, at least we won't get trapped by another cave in." I sighed. Of course the cave had to of collapsed on me, it's like an unwritten rule that I must suffer.

"Hey!" A shout interrupted any further discussion. Looking where it came from we saw nervous Silvia, that weird, silent girl that kept stalking me yesterday and two very freaked out guys. "Jaune, you and your partn… Pyrrha Nikos? Your partner is Pyrrha Nikos? Doesn't matter! You need to go take a relic, and we all need to leave. Something big was chasing us and I'm not sure we lost it." Silvia glanced at the two guys when she mentioned something chasing them, and now that I can take a closer look, they aren't just freaked out, they look to be in shock of some sort… and they look a little familiar… Hey! It's two of those jerks from yesterday! But… where are the other two? Wait… something BIG is coming?!

"What do you mean by something big!?" Seriously, I barely killed that Beowolf before! How can I even participate if something bigger shows up?!

"No time! Get a relic and prepare to move!" To say I was shocked by her tone would be an understatement. This wasn't the Silvia I met yesterday. "That goes for you two as well, get yourselves together and go for a relic." The way she... commanded those guys. That's not the same, joking, easy to get along with girl. Shaking my head to snap out of my musings I moved to run to the rubble, but I got an idea just before going.

"I'll go for the relic. Pyrrha, you stay and watch the trees. If something knows we are here, it can circle around and come from different side." That and I doubt I wouldn't get in the way if something did come.

As I was running, I overheard the two guys with Silvia talking.

"The blond has a good idea, Rus. You go and I'll stay." One of them said.

"B-but what about..." the other sounded very dismayed.

"Later! You heard the girl, you saw what happened… we were both there… You think I'm fine? I'm not! But now we need to get out of here. We'll talk about it when we're safe… I promise." The first one said.

"You're right… but I'll hold you to that promise, Sky." With that the green haired guy took off for the rubble pile I'm going for, as the other one turned back to the trees. I wonder what that was about, but I also get the feeling that I don't want to know.

I was almost knocked over by that energetic girl, Nora I think, as she ran past me from the ruins. I don't see myself being able to keep up with that girl, her quiet friend has to have extreme self-control to not snap… or she already mentally broke him.

"Hey, Ren, look! My Queen is a perfect match to your castle!" She shouted as she waved around a White Queen chess piece. Are those the relics? Chess pieces?

"That's nice Nora." That's strange, why are they looking at one another with that strange look of acceptance in their eyes, shouldn't they be happy the other one is fine?

Arriving to the ruins of the temple right after the green haired guy, I took in the scene. There were multiple collapsed pedestals and still settling rubble all around, it looked like it collapsed just a few minutes ago. The green haired guy just grabbed the relic closer to him, which was a White Knight piece. I took the one next to me, which happened to be a White Rook. After a second I noticed a problem however.

"Er...Guys! There aren't any more pieces left!" After everyone processed my declaration, they slowly looked at Silvia and the silent girl, who I know for sure don't have a piece yet. I started sweating when the silent girl started eyeing me like I was a mouse and she a cat.

"Wait, what?" Yang sounded very confused and looked between me and Silvia. "But… there were loads just a few minutes ago!"

"But, there aren't any now!" Ok, that silent girl is starting to scare me.

"Maybe they were buried under rubble when the temple collapsed?" The black haired girl next to Yang wondered aloud.

I saw Silvia say something to the silent girl, which got her pouting for a moment before she faced the forest. After that Silvia ran over to the ruins and looked them over, i was unsure on what to do, as was the green haired guy and we both slowly backed away as Silvia started shifting rubble near when one of those pedestals looked to have been standing just a few minutes ago. After about a minute of everyone throwing around worried glances, Silvia exclaimed in victory.

"Aha! Found one!" She dusted herself off and held up a Black Queen, bringing a mollified look from the silent girl. "Ok, do all pairs have a relic?"

At the nods from everyone around, we all were prepared to get out of this place, me especially not wanting to stay and see what was chasing Silvia before. But as we all turned to go, a piercing bird screech followed by all of our Scrolls going off interrupted any plans we had. Ren was the first to react and brought his Scroll out, reading it out loud for us all.

"Initiation canceled, S-class Grimm entered the area, all students evacuate from the forest or find shelter and wait for rescue." This is bad. Very, very bad! Another bird call immediately caught our attention. Looking in the direction it came from, I saw a black shape going straight for us in the distance.

"Run! It's coming!" I don't think I even needed to say it, as everyone scrambled to get into the forest for cover, but before we could hide from it, the treeline exploded.

"Eeeehhhh..." I shivered when dog-sized spiders started pouring out of the smoke, but that wasn't the worst of it yet. As the smoke cleared, a giant spider, about the size of the ruined temple walked out of the trees. I stood there frozen, just looking at the scene. Why did it have to be spiders!

"Jaune!" Oh, thank you for snapping me out of it Pyrrha! "We need to move!" Don't have to tell me twice, anything to get away from this monster!

We quickly retreated back to the temple, the spiders seemed to not want to go there, so that was a definite plus. But… "Hey, what about that bird!?" Ruby, why do you have to ruin my relief to be away from the spiders?

Looking up as a shadow passed over us, my heart just stopped. In the air above us was a giant Nevermore, and not just normal giant, a GIANT giant. It was holding something I couldn't see, but that wasn't the weirdest thing about it, it was wearing armor. There was a hull of an oversized Bullhead stuck around its torso.

"It's the Black Ace..." Ruby's worried mutter was like screaming in my ears.

"Black Ace? What is a Black Ace?" I was scared, but I didn't care, others were scared too.

"The Black Ace, the biggest source of airship related tragedies in the last 50 years." The blue haired guy said with fear and… sadness?

"H-How are we supposed to fight it?" I blurted out in worry.

"We don't." What! What does he mean by that. "We fight what he drops on us." The blue haired man said ominusly.

"Wait! What do you mean drop?!" My question went unanswered as two things were dropped from the sky… or was that the answer?

We were surrounded, we had the spider behind us, and two new Grimm pinning us down, one from the left and the other from the right so that they formed a triangle with the temple in the middle. Everyone pulled out their weapons and prepared for the worst.

"This is bad, what do we do? Ren?" Even Nora sounded worried, I'm not sure we'll get out of her alive at this point.

"Names. If we are to do this, we need each other's names. Let's go in a circle, I'm Silvia, the silent one is Neo." After quickly swapping names I learned that Yang's partner is named Blake, and the two guys that came with Silvia are Sky and Russel. As that was happening, the dust clouds hiding the two new Grimm were blown away, revealing a big turtle with spiked shell and a weird Ursa-sized, armored blob standing on three long thin legs with eyes on all sides. Thankfully they looked to be slightly disoriented, so they didn't attack right away, but that wouldn't last long

"Alright, ok, alright…" My nervous babbling got mostly unnoticed as I sorted out my thoughts. Just apply basic logic Jaune, how can we get through this? First part of solving any problem is learning about it… information! We need information! "Anyone knows what these are?"

"I know the spiders." Sky said, eyes filled with sadness and determination when I looked at him. "The small ones are called 'Skitterlings' and the big one is 'Queen Arachne'. The big one creates and controls the small ones, the only way to win is to kill the Queen, but the small ones will overwhelm us if we ignore them."

"The turtle is a 'Spinshell'." Pyrrha called out. "It can spin at high speeds and shoot out it's spikes, they take time to regrow. It usually slides around on mud in a marsh, but I don't know what it'll do here."

"That weird blob monster is a 'Seeker'." Yang commented.

"A 'Mountain Seeker'." Ruby added. "Its legs can extend, and it has six smaller ones hidden on the bottom. It strikes fast and can see everything around it, and if it's this big… it's attacks will go straight through armor… and your Aura." That's worrying… a lot, you can't defend against it and you have to dodge!? That's insane! What monsters are these! What did I get myself into!?

I could see that everyone was worried, and what I just learned doesn't inspire much confidence in me, in fact, it's quite the opposite! I'm even more terrified knowing what these things can do! But there is no time for that! It won't be long before they attack us, and I have no idea what to do, but the other sure have, I mean, Pyrrha was fighting like some sort of superhero in the forest, or maybe a videogame character… wait… videogames, that's it! If this was a videogame, how would I win this encounter? 3 bosses and 12 characters, well, obviously I would split the party and put everyone against something they would be best against. And we don't even have to beat them to 'win', just survive long enough for help to come!

"Guys! I gave an idea!" I just hope it's good enough.

"Yeah, and why should we listen, wimp?" Russel said, leering at me, which earned him a glare from Neo

"Exactly, who made you the leader?" Weiss rebutted, sounding rather peeved.

"Ok, let's hear it." Silvia piped up with a completely serious voice, completely ignoring the two.

"Wait, what? Why are you encouraging him?" Weiss complained.

"Because a potentially bad plan is better than no plan in this situation, or do you want to be forced into a giant melee with these Grimm?" That sent Weiss grumbling. Thanks for the support Silvia, though a bit more confidence would be appreciated. "That's what I thought. What do you have in mind Jaune?" And that icy tone kinda scares me.

"Ok, let's…" Deep breath Jaune, you can do this. "Let's split into groups based on our abilities, and each group take on one Grimm suited for them." With no apparent reaction I decided to continue. "We need people with high Evasion on the Seeker, and-"

"Wait a moment, 'Evasion'? You think this is a videogame?" Russel mocked. Neo promptly smacked him upside the head and gave him a glare.

"If it helps us survive, then sure! I sure don't have a better idea, and neither do you, so shut up and listen! We are now in a videogame, no saves, and only one life. How do we win this 'encounter' Jaune?" Silvia is really cold and aggressive, is this what she's like when she's on the battlefield? Oh no, everyone is looking at me now… get it together, you know what to do, just put it into words.

"As I was saying, high Evasion on the Seeker. AoE and crowd control on the spiders and that's a priority here, we can't let them swarm us at any cost. They break our line, we are finished. Defense on Spinshell, his spikes will be flying everywhere and we need to block them before they hit someone in the back." The idea would work in a videogame, let's see how everyone takes it.

"That's…" Weiss looked like she was struggling to come to terms that someone like me could come up with the skeleton of a plan in such a short time.

"A start, but who goes where?" Pyrrha pointed out the obvious.

"Yang, load up your explosive ammo and go help with the spiders, Nora, you too. I'm fast enough to evade the Seeker." Ruby took the initiative and gave the first command.

"Ok, be careful sis." Even in anticipation of a huge fight, Yang seemed to care for Ruby.

"Aye aye, captain! Ren, you come with us too." Nora said, snapping off a salute.

"As you wish. Weiss, your Dust control could help us in stopping the swarm." Ren stated emotionlessly. I still dread the thought of winding up with Nora if she could drain him like that… No! Focus darn it!

"Alright, but only because we don't have any better options." Weiss reluctantly agreed.

"Rus, you are nimble. Think you could help Ruby with the Seeker?" Sky asked his companion

"If you think it's best…" Russel said unhappily, nervously fidgeting with his daggers.

"I'm good with avoiding hits, I'll help with the Seeker." Blake stated, one of the few managing to stay completely calm

"Good to know." Ruby responded, eyeing the Seeker.

"Pyrrha and I will go for the Spinshell, we can deflect at least some spikes with our shields." I joined the role assignments, now feeling a lot better about this, I wasn't sure at first, but now? Well, I hope we survive long enough for help to arrive.

"What about you three?" Ruby asked, looking between Sky, Neo and Silvia.

"I do have an evasion ability, but it's hard to use. I could keep up with the Seeker, but not for long. I could help with the spiders though." Silvia admitted, not too happy that her strengths don't exactly fit our situation.

"Alright, what about you Neo?" I asked the creepy silent girl, will she finally talk? Wait, didn't Silvia say her name for her? Is she mute or something?

Neo just looked around and nodded at me with that unnerving smile. I really don't know what to make of her. "Sure, Neo will go with Jaune and Pyrrha against the Spinshell." But Silvia apparently does know. I wonder, do they know each other?

"Wait, aren't we forgetting something?" Ren inquired, showing the faintest hints of concern. "What about all the Grimm in the forest that are no doubt on their way here?" Crap, we don't have anyone for that, well, Sky maybe could do it, but he doesn't look that strong. Stronger than me, obviously, but not as strong as Pyrrha, and we need her to defend against the Spinshell…

"I can take care of that!" Silvia piped up.

"Wait, we can't just ignore Arachne either, she'll start shooting web at us if we do." Sky pointed out worriedly.

"Then you distract her, you have the longest stick out of all of us." Yang commented, pointing to his halberd. This brought on a small round of chuckles, but those were gone fairly quickly when we all had to jump out of the way of several spikes flying at us. We were so caught up with the planning we missed the Grimm starting their attack!

"Quick, you know your positions!" I called out and ran after Neo and Pyrrha to engage the Spinshell. I saw Silvia do something to her sword from the corner of my eye, but I didn't pay enough attention to it to know what it was.

Pyrrha started unloading into it to no effect, her rounds bouncing off its shell and not even leaving a scratch, before it charged at her and tries to crush her underfoot, thankfully she rolled out of the way the Spinshell trying to brake and turn around to make another run at her, kicking up dirt and rocks in the process.

"Pyrrha, Neo, we need to lead it away from the others!" I ordered, noticing how the fight was gravitating towards all the Skitterlings. Pyrrha began shooting at again to draw its attention and we retreated to lure it away from the others. It retreated into its shell and began to spin again, and I had a good idea what was going to happen next. "We need to keep the others out of its like of fire!" I quickly tried to circle around and position myself between it and the others, shield at the ready, pyrrha following my lead. The Spinshell started firing off spikes and they packed some force as they bounced off our shields, or in Neos case, a seemingly indestructible parasol. A few sailed over my head however, and I saw they were headed straight for Blake, who wouldn't see them coming as she was too distracted with the Seeker. "Blake, watch out for spikes!" Oh god she got hi-... I watched in amazement as what i thought was Blake faded away and the real blake was standing a few feet to the right, for a second I had though she got skewered but instead it looks like she moved fast enough to leave an afterimage? At least, that's what i think she di-

The sound of glass shattering made me whip my head to see Neo had somehow moved across the clearing in the blink of an eye and had blocked a spike headed straight for Silvia, one I hadn't seen. I heard her mutter a "thanks!" before Neo elegantly returned to our side, just as, instead of charging again, the Spinshell started _spewing fire_ , Pyrrha and Neo managed to retreat out of range, but I had to hunker behind my shield and try to move to cover as i could feel my shield _rapidly_ heating up. By the time I was behind a rock my shield arm was in intense pain as I could feel my skin blistering from the heat. A crack, much louder deeper, and echoing than the sound of Pyrrha's weapon,rang out from Silvia's direction, before something left a contrail as it struck the Spinshells head with enough force to crack the armor there, incidentally causing it to stop breathing fire.

"Jaune! Move!" Pyrrha yelled, and i instinctively rolled away as the Spinshell charged at me again, at the same time feeling something yank on my shield and drag me out o the way of the Spinshells thagomizer narrowly avoided impaling me. Looking at my teammates I saw Pyrrha's outstretched arm. Was she using her semblance? Neo extended a blade from her parasol and tried to stab it into the tail hole of its shell, only to be batted away and tumble a few times in the dirt. She managed to get up and dodge as the creature turned around and exhaled flames at her… Leaving Ren, who was dealing with the Skitterlings, in the line of fire, he heard the crackling of the flames and dodged to left, letting some Skitterlings get roasted. The creature then tried to charge down Neo, who simply bully hopped over it and managed to land a slice or two in its tail. Afterwards, it retreated into its shell and we all took defensive positions to weather another barrage of spikes. Maybe if I could figure out a pattern...

* * *

 **[Ruby Rose]**

* * *

"Quick, you know your positions!" Jaune shouted, before Silvia did something with her blade. She gripped the top guard on of her sword and cranked it to the side like a lever, sliding it 90° on a built-in rail. The mechanism in the sword clicked and the blade split down the middle all the way from the hilt to the tip, exposing a sniper barrel hidden inside. She slid the guard-lever forward until it clicked again, becoming the bolt lever for the weapon, the barrel extended beyond the reach of the original sword, with the bottom half sliding forward with it to create a bayonet of sorts, this also exposed a slot for an ammo cartridge near the hilt. The bottom half of the guard slid out a bit and bent backward, becoming the trigger. The top of the grip opened up and an optic, similar in function to that on Crescent Rose, slid out of it and clicked on the spot where the top guard used to be. Then the grip extended backwards to create a stock. Silvia reached to the back of her belt and pulled out an ammo cartridge, which she slammed into the slot and pulled back the bolt to load in a bullet. Judging by the size of the breech, she used some of the _bigger_ rounds. Managing to refocus myself, me, Russel, and Blake rushed the seeker to try and take it down before it could do much damage.

It didn't work out! We had to avoid getting hit by its piston like legs, as even Aura couldn't save any of use form so much force concentrated onto a single focused point, and on top of that, it's six tentacle-spike thingies made it hard to get in and actually hit it! Any time we approached one of the legs would come down, and the tentacles would strike every optimal direction to dodge, forcing us to dodge _away_ from it, keeping us from getting directly below it! Russel tried to slash at its lower legs, only achieving a shower of sparks as metal met metal. "Don't bother with the lower legs, they have metal fused into them!" I shouted out, wincing as one of the tentacle-spikes knocked russel away. I started firing at its underbelly, forcing the tendrils into a defensive position as Blake dodged the next stomp attempt and got beneath it, before a few of the tendrils broke off from defending to try and drive her away from it, while Russell tried to go for a higher portion of the legs form what he thought was a blind spot, only to get swatted down by a tendril.

"Blake! Watch out for spikes!" I Heard Jaune shout, just in time for a spike to fly through Blake's blurred form as I realized she had already moved to dodge and what was struck appeared to be part of her Semblance. I tried to fire off more shots but the Seeker pre-empted me by lashing out with its appendages and forcing me to evade least i got slashed by the tendrils or impaled by its legs. Unfortunately the spikes had forced Blake into an unfavorable position where her attacks were hitting its armor. Russel tried to sprint up its leg as it overextended trying to skewer me, but the Seeker lashed out with its tentacles and forced Russel to jump off, only for me to realize the appendage was coming straight for me now. So I aimed Crescent Rose down, and jumped as I pulled the trigger, using the recoil to boost myself into the air where I took some potshots, managing to nail it in one of its eyes, causing it to make an odd noise as it bellowed in rage. Before I saw a tendril coming straight at me. My aura took most of the blow but it did managed to punch through and skim against my arm, leaving a small cut, which caused me to yelp in surprise as I tumbled back to the ground barely managing to land on my feet.

"Ruby?! Are you okay?" Oh Dust. of all the times for my sister to worry about me.

"Yang no! You need to keep those spiders busy or-" The Seeker lashed out at what it thought was easier prey with its tendrils, which caused Yang to haphazardly fire of some rounds as she backpedaled that missed the tendrils and bounced off the armor of the Seekers body. She deflected the first two, the third missed, before they retracted and lashed out again, Yang deflecting the first and barely dodging the second one. The third one was headed straight for Yang's head and she had no time to react, before SIlvia came out of nowhere and body checked Yang aside and was speared through the chest. "SILVIA!"

* * *

 **[Silvia Shade]**

* * *

"Quick, you know your positions!" Jaune ordered, showing a remarkable ability to function when push comes to shove. Seeing that Ruby was still around, I decided to give her a morale boost by showing her what she'll get to play with after we are done. Getting her attention by starting Phantom's transformation, I watched her observe it and then jumped up onto one of the less damaged pillars of the temple.

Taking a quick stock of the situation, I didn't see any Grimm coming from the forest yet, but I did see that Arachne was already spraying her webs at the 'spider team'. At least until Sky got her attention by slashing his halberd at her face. Yang and Nora were keeping the Skitterlings back with explosives, doing the most damage together with Weiss, who was using fire dust to carve into them. Ren was spraying their ranks with his weapons, his high rate of fire, but relatively low damage firearms perfect for picking off anything that get's past the literal wall of fire.

Seeing movement I looked over to see Spinshell charging over and spraying Nora with dirt it kicked up when braking. I took aim with Phantom and scanned over the treeline, sighting the head of a Beowolf wandering towards the fight a few seconds later. This was by no means a normal situation, there is no room for error.

"Calm your breathing." I started mumbling to myself as I recounted my training to calm my nerves.

"Keep your aim steady." I zoomed on the Beowolf's head.

"Shoot to kill." I pulled the trigger and it's head exploded.

"No moves wasted." I cycled in the next round and took aim at another target. Every move must be perfect.

Not long after I got in a rhythm, take aim, shoot, move onto the next target,and reloading every ten shots. I sure was glad I packed so much ammunition. Soon I heard the sound of glass shattering and took a quick look behind me to see Neo had blocked one of the Spinshell's spikes with her parasol.

I gave Neo a quick "Thanks!" before she moved to rejoin Jaune and Pyrrha. I was about to go back to my rhythm, when I noticed that the Spinshell was breathing fire at Jaune, who was currently huddled behind a rock. I couldn't help but mutter a quick "thanks for standin still" as I lined up my crosshair dead center with its head and pulled the trigger, glad to see the round had actually done some damage to its facial armor, causing it to stop breathing fire. I was fully expecting the round to just bounce off, but seeing the crack in its armor brought me a sense of satisfaction. With that dealt with, I resumed blasting the lesser grimm trickling in from the forest, mechanically cycling the bolt and instinctively reloading when I emptied the magazine. After my fifth reload, I saw a Skitterling jumping at Ren's back, as he was forced to jump over some of the Spinshells fire. Quickly taking aim, I took the shot and the spider practically exploded in the air. I was thankful that it hadn't angled itself in a way, where I wouldn't have been able to hit it without risking over penetrating and hitting Ren. Eventually the grimm stopped coming from the forest, which allowed me to focus on the Skitterlings which were slowly starting to overwhelm the defense team.

"Ruby?! Are you okay?" Eyes widening in horror I watched as Yang broke off from the Skitterlings to assist her sister, who appeared to have been wounded by the Seeker, before realizing her mistake and trying to back out of range deflecting blows from the Seeker, but she was struggling to keep up. I had to intervene, no one was in a position to help. I shifted Phantom halfway back into the sword and Jumped towards Yang, I fired the semi-transformed Phantom behind me for an extra push, the weapon wasn't designed with this in mind, but it'll help in a pinch, it may stress the mechanisms a bit, but I can't dwell on that now. As I raced to get there in time, I was already priming my Semblance, no way I'll get out of it another way with how close it's going to be. I activated my Semblance when I was close enough to estimate the impact zone, feeling the discomfort of a part of me loosing it's solid state, and jumped to push Yang out of the way, taking her place and getting hit with Seeker's spiked tendril. Thankfully I got it right and the tendril went straight through the hole I opened up through my chest, like threading a needle. I looked down to the hazy opening in my body to see just how close I was to actually being impaled, I gulped when I saw that just an inch to the left would probably kill me instantly.

"SILVIA!" Oh, right, I didn't have time to tell them about this yet, poor Ruby and Yang, they probably think they just got me killed or something… well… it almost happened, but it didn't.

"Phew, that was close." I finally got out my breath of relief that everyone is more or less ok so far. Pulling out Banshee with my left hand and shifting it into its dagger form, I didn't engage its energy blade, but set it to Ice Dust, tapping into it to boost my Semblance. The Seeker was confused why I wasn't dead yet, that's good, more time to do what I need. I vaguely noticed the hazy black mist that was filling the hole in my chest turn misty blue as I cranked my Semblance to its full power and felt myself losing form, I slammed the tendril pinning me with Phantom into the ground before exploding into a shapeless cloud of freezing mist, trapping the limb in place, at least for now. I pulled myself back together near Ruby and Yang, but out of Seeker's immediate range.

"Silvia? Thats brilliant! Russel! Freeze the legs in place! Yang, get back on the skitterlings, we've got this covered now!" RUby shouted, taking command of the small group. Russel immediately caught on and switched over to ice dust in his daggers and used it to freeze one of the Seekers legs to the ground, before having to duck under the spikes being launched from the Spinshell. One of the spikes hit and cracked the ice holding the tendril place, and the Seeker used the opportunity to try and shatter the ice with another tendril.

"No, you don't." I couldn't help say as I quickly took aim with Banshee and fired, managing to freeze the second tendril on top of the first.

Meanwhile, Blake managed to bait a tentacle with her Semblance, probably getting the idea from me, and gave Russel a chance to freeze it solid.

Seeing the success of those two, I decided to be a bit bold and try for a repeat performance of my previous move. I ran at the Seeker, Banshee in hand and priming my Semblance for activation, I went for it's leg, knowing it'll try to defend with it's tendril spikes, and I was right. Just as it shot out one spike to impale me, I activated my semblance and once again threaded the needle, allowing it to pass through an opening in my chest. But just as I was about to freeze it, I saw a flash of something white and barely twisted my head out of the way of a second spike. I got to keep my head, but the pain that erupted from my left shoulder was on a whole different level, that thing hid a second spike in the shadow of the first one, it's learning. I screamed in pain as my Semblance threatened to fail and bring my end if I stay in this position. Just barely mustering the strength to do so, I pumped what I could into my Semblance and phased out of the deadly embrace in a form of a black hazy mist. I got a few feet of distance before my Semblance failed and I was thrown into a tumble across the ground.

"SILVIA!" This time it was Yang screaming my name in shock.

"Ah! Don't worry, I'll survive long enough to get this looked at! That was a total fail though, it's smarter than it looks!" I called out, if there is one good thing about Seeker's strikes, it's that they don't drain almost any Aura, meaning that even normally fatal strikes only become life threatening after Aura starts failing. I'm not out yet, but now I'm definitely on a time limit. Struggling to get to my feet, I felt a pair of hands slip under my arms and assist me up. Looking at who was assisting me, I saw Neo. she seemed to have been standing behind me when i was stabbed through the shoulder as there was now blood on her face, and an _very_ sadistic smirk on her face, as she eyed the Seeker.

"Thanks Neo… but don't get involved here… It was just a slip up… we got this, you go back to the Spinshell… I sure don't want to get nailed in the back by an overgrown turtle." I got out with some slight panting, sure I'm not dying yet, but that doesn't mean it hurts any less. Neo reluctantly nodded and returned to Jaune and Pyrrha to fight the Spinshell.

"Everybody, Aim for the other eye!" Ruby shouted. Triggering Phantoms transformation again, I heard the mechanisms groaning in strain. I was going to need to fix this later. As we all opened fire, I notice blake's rounds where effortlessly blocked by the tendrils, where as my and Ruby's packed enough force to actually push them around a little. Lining up a shot, I fired and pushed a tendril just far enough away for Ruby to take a shot and shoot out its eye, causing the thing to reel in pain, Giving Russel an opportunity to freeze another one of its legs, before jumping back to avoid retaliation. He didn't jump far enough though, but before the tendrils could reach him, Blake threw her weapon and the ribbon on it wrapped around Russel's leg, allowing her to yank him out of range before Ruby launched herself at it and forced it to duck. Seeing an opportunity, blake swung Russel back at it in a hammer throw, allowing Russel to slice through a tendril with a fire infused dagger. Blakes weapon untangled from his leg and let him fly past the Seeker at the Arachnee, before the Seeker refocused on me. Knowing I don't currently have what it takes to evade all of it normally, I primed my Semblance in preparation. Just as I saw the tendrils nearing me, I once again burst into a smoky cloud in an attempt to dash away, but with the pain I didn't get too far and entered another tumble when my Semblance failed.

"Ah! This will be the death of me!" I grit out, shakily getting up by using Phantom as a crutch. As I looked up, I saw he seekers free leg ready to come down on me, before the sound of Ruby's weapon firing preceded Blake impacting the leg with her weapon and knocking it off course, leaving it to miss me by inches. Not wanting to let such an opportunity slip by, I took out Banshee and activated it's blade. I stabbed Banshee into the ground and using the Ice Dust, encased the leg in thick ice, trapping it and leaving the Seeker completely unable to walk.

"Thanks for the save." I said once I was sure the ice won't break easily.

"It should be vulnerable now, we just need it to hold still!" Ruby shouted.

"Hold it in place? That's all? I have something for that, but I barely move as is. You'll need to get is pretty close for it to work." It's becoming a bit harder to breathe, we need to finish this and fast. If i overtax a bit… well, it wouldn't be the first time.

"Gotcha!" Ruby proceeded to use her weapon to assist in launching Blake at the Seeker,. Ruby nodded at me and took aim at the sekers tendrils, with me following suite, keeping them from attacking Blake. Once she was directly overhead Blake threw her weapon down which forced it to lean to the side to avoid getting hit, but with its legs frozen to the ground, it was off balance.

Pushing away the lightheadedness, I took what was left of my strength and put it towards the other facet of my Semblance. This time, instead of my body dissolving into formless darkness, the darkness in my shadow gained form. I threw my hand up and with a yell of exertion, my shadow peeled away from the ground in a form of black ribbon, which ensnared the Seeker and brought it further off balance, making it fall to the ground.

"Now! Hurry!" I barely got out as I fell on one knee, barely holding it. I could feel my shoulder began bleeding again, as my Aura started giving out. Ruby, seeing the opportunity, launched herself at it and let her scythe tear into it as she passed, landing the fatal blow, leaving a the Grimm a standing corpse that slowly dissolved, alongside the world around me as I passed out.

* * *

 **[Jaune Arc]**

* * *

I had just heard ruby yelp in pain, but was a bit busy trying to lure the Spinshell into the ruins where I could trick it into charging headfirst into solid rock.I noticed SIlvia wasn't on her sniping perch anymore, and saw her charging towards the Seeker. "Come and get me you ugly reptile!" Having gotten the Spinshells attention, it charged, and I waited in a lethal game of chicken, until at the last second I lept out of the way, causing it to slam headfirst into solid stone pillar, leaving it dazed and its head cracked further. Pyrrha and Neo closed into to try and attack it, but it retreated into its shell and started spinning again, launching spikes everywhere. Some of which were in the direction of the Seeker, which appeared to have on of its appendages frozen to the ground. After it stopped spinning, the Spinshell charged again, and I rolled out of the way. If only there was a way to get it to stop spinning! Coming out of my roll, I felt my foot plant itself into something sticky. Gross! Webbing form… the… Arachnee… That's it! "Neo, Pyrrha! If we can get it trapped in the Arachne's web, we can stop it from spinning!" taking a moment to locate Sky, I shouted to him too. "Sky! We're luring the Spinshell over to your location, we're going to use the Arachne's webs to immobilize it!" Sky yelled something back, either an acknowledgment, or something about fish. The Spinshell heard me and charged at me, incidentally leading it towards the Arachnee.. It soon retreated into its shell to launch another volley of spikes, but we blocked all of them this time. Phyrra and Neo spread out around it so we formed a triangle around it, as Russel came screaming overhead and towards the arachnee, where he stabbed his daggers into the large spider in an attempt to halt his momentum, causing it to screech in pain and spray web everywhere, also making most of the Skitterlings momentarily stop, before they resumed their charge.

"You're gonna have to lure it closer!" Sky shouted at me, still keeping the Arachnee occupied with his polearm.

"Pyrrha, you heard him, you're in the best position to lure it!" I shouted, and in response, she switch her blade into a spear, and hurled it at the Spinshell, managing to break its head armor off before holding out her hand, which caused the spear to return to its owner. The Spinshell's head retreated into its shell, which at least limited its field of vision as it charged her. It stopped so close to Arachne it almost crushed few of her Skitterlings. As it started to turn around, Neo waved her parasol around herself and did a pirouette for some reason? Wait… as she did that, several more Neo's appeared around the Spinshell, leaving it, and me confused as to which was the real Neo. Meanwhile Sky had circled around the Arachne to get it to face the Spinshell, before Yang vaulted over a bunch of Skitterlings and launched a punch on the Arachne's head, stunning it and majority of her Skitterlings, giving Russel an opportunity to stab fire dust enhanced knifes into the arachne's shell, causing it to screech in pain, shooting webbing that landed on the Spinshell, which managed to keep it from starting another spin. "Nows our chance!" Neo tried to stab her parasol blade into the head hole of the Spinshell, only to be repelled by a burst of flame. "Sky! Your polearm!" Getting the message, Sky disengaged from the dazed and thrashing Arachne and charged the Spinshell, using his weapon the vault over the flames and stab it into the hole, which caused the Spinshell to screech in pain and stop spewing fire. Yanking his weapon out, he stabbed it in at a more favorable angle and pulled the trigger. The creature screamed in pain, before he pulled the trigger a second time, causing smoke to waft out of the head hole as he withdrew the weapon and the Spinshell fell still and silent, before beginning to dissolve.

Looking at how Ruby was doing, I saw that SIlvia had been stabbed through her shoulder. Looking to my side, I saw neo was looking kinda bloody and _very_ angry, glaring at the dead Seeker before her glare eventually feel on the Arachne. She motioned at me, specifically at my shield, and mimed bouncing off something before pointing at herself and then the giant spider. "You want me… to boost you onto its face?" She nodded, and began running at it, while I followed close behind, shield prepared as she hopped back, and then jumped off my shield with enough force to make me hit the ground. When i recovered, she was _gleefully_ stabbing out the Arachne's eyes one by one with her parasol blade. You know what, just _back away_ and let her stab it to death. Weiss, seeing and opportunity, used one of her glyphs to jump and land on the Arachne, before stabbing her weapon into the point its thorax joined its head and unloaded fire dust into the wound, making the Arachne squeal and thrash in pain even more, the Skitterlings just stopped at this point and one by one started falling over as their Queen was dying.

It didn't take long for her to stop thrashing around and start dissolving along with her Skitterlings. As I sighed with relief that there are no more giant monster trying to kill me, I had to drop my shield as my left arm erupted in intense pain. With all of the running around and dodging monster attacks, I completely forgot about the burns I got… and now the pain is coming back with vengeance! Quickly removing my glove,the cold air and sudden lack of pressure helped relieve the pain a little. "Hey Jaune, look, helps here!" Ruby shouted excitedly, pointing out a bullhead on the horizon, heading straight in the direction of the recently deceased Grimm. Ren was currently carrying an unconscious Silvia, having torn part of his shirt to use to help slow the bleeding.

"Hey ren, is she-" I winced as my arm brushed against some foliage "Is Silvia going to be alright?"

"As long as she receives proper medical attention relatively soon, she should make full recovery. You should be more worried about avoiding getting an open blister on your burn, because that could lead to an infection." I winced at the idea of that happening.

The Bullhead soon landed in front of us and I could hear someone inside shouting. "Hey Jeff! Get the stretcher ready, we got wounded!" Shortly after, two man walked out of the passenger area with a stretcher at the ready while a third came out carrying a first aid kit. Ren set Silvia down gently on the stretcher, and pointed at me.

"You should probably bring him back too, the burn he sustained needs to be dealt with before it can get infected." The pilots looked visibly impressed by Ren's medical knowledge.

"You got some good eyes and some smarts kid. Another Bullhead should be here shortly for the rest of you, but for know, you with the burn and the bloody girl, we need to get you looked at ASAP, along with you unconscious friend." They ushered me and Neo onto the Bullhead, before they carried Silvia onboard to, and made sure the stretcher was properly secured. We soon took off, only for me to realize something.

"Shit! I left Crocea Mors behind!" How can I be a good Hunter if I can't even remember to keep my weapon on me… Neo grinned and produced Crocea Mors from behind her back, with a smug look on her face. I was rather flabbergasted, when had she managed to pick it up?

"Kid, your lucky your girlfrend looks out for you like that." The medic who was currently trying to stop the bleeding form Silvia's wound said to us. Neo merely looked at me and grinned, which looked absolutely _terrifying_ with the blood and dirt on her face. The medic saw this and laughed. "Boy, she has you _whipped_." Oh dust can I please die from embarrassment, she's not my girlfriend, I swear she just finds amusement in my suffering! Once they had Silvia properly stabilized, the medic began dealing with my burn, applying an ointment to help with the pain, before wrapping it up in some gauze. "How'd this happen to you, anyway?"

"Turns out Spinshells can breath fire. And my shield isn't exactly insulated against heat…" I managed to mutter out. Hearing a groan, I saw SIlvia starting to move a little.

"Ow… whe… where am I?" She groaned out, clearly not feeling even remotely well. The medic turned to face her, having finished with my arm, only to find Neo already at her side. "Hey, Neo. With you here, it means that we either all died, or help got there in time. Which is it?" Neo started making a bunch of motions with her hands, which left me scratching my head as to what that would accomplish. "Oh? That's good to hear. How did you win?" More odd hand motions. Was that like… sign language or something? "He did?" Neo nodded in confirmation. "Certainly a welcome surprise. Good job Jaune!" Good to know my thinking is being acknowledged. "And what about you, Neo?" Neo made some more motions, this time causing Silvia to snort in amusement. "Why am I not surprised?"

"What did she do? It must have been a sight to get someone who got stabbed through the shoulder to laugh." The medic inquired.

"Hm? Oh! She rode on top of a giant spider while stabbing it's eyes out." Silvia answered when she noticed there are other people than just her and Neo. She was still chuckling, but it probably hurt her as she was wincing while doing it.

"Easy there, you don't want to hurt yourself further. So what possessed you and the others to take on what the Black Ace dropped off?" the medic asked, seeming genuinely curious.

"It's not that we wanted to stay there. An Arachne cut off our escape, and before we found another, Black Ace already dropped off his package. We were surrounded and had to fight. If not to kill them, at least to stall long enough for help to arrive." Silvia quickly summed up why we stayed and fought. It probably wasn't the best idea for her to be talking right now, but she doesn't seem to be in any immediate danger anymore.

"So, you're telling me, you guys, a bunch of hunters in training, managed to slay _three_ B-class Grimm? That's going to be one heck of an initiation story to top…"


	4. Chapter 4

**And we are back yet again, a bit late, but what can you do, right? And guess what? Our first review is here!**

 **Big thank you to** Yuri-sage **for being the first one to comment on this story, don't worry though, we'll keep going.**

* * *

 **[Ozpin]**

* * *

Nightmare, that's the only way to describe what occurred just a few short hours ago. With Ace coming early and everyone being occupied with its 'cargo', there was no one who could be dispatched to search the forest in a reasonable time. Thankfully, it appears that the situation wasn't as bad as it at first appeared, and while it is indeed tragic, the number of… fatalities… didn't rise above the average, even with the presence of far more dangerous Grimm than what is normally allowed during Initiation. Speaking of dangerous Grimm.

"Professor Ozpin." Ah, yes, Glynda was overseeing the containment operations for Ace's 'cargo' last I saw her.

"Hello, Glynda. How is the situation?" I enquired, hopeful that situation had be dealt with.

"I'm glad to report that the vast majority of the Clawlets has been already dealt with. The few who did manage to escape are being tracked down as we speak." Clawlets, small tunneling Grimm who enjoy nothing more than to sabotage infrastructure from below. It's a good thing our subterrain sensors are sensitive enough to track them, otherwise a lot more would get out, and that would be catastrophic.

"That's good." I replied.

"I trust in the meantime you've been reviewing the footage of the fight?" Glynda asked, although it was more a formality at this point.

"Yes, and I've found several points of interest. I've sent the relevant video files to your Scroll already." Glynda proceeded to check the files I sent her, and opened one. The video was of miss Neopolitan rather… enthusiastically stabbing the eyes of the Arachne.

"I honestly believe miss Neopolitan may not be quite… right, mentally. She hasn't shown any unusual hostility towards other students yet, but we should definitely put her under observation. I do hope she doesn't terrorize any of the students in her free time…"

* * *

 **[?]**

* * *

I was walking… no. I was being lead. Lead to something I can't make out.

There are shapes all around me, watching, shouting, but I can't understand what. I know they are there, they always are, but I can't see them, all I see are shadows and silhouettes.

I look down on myself. My hands are bound by something, I can't tell what. I'm wearing a long black dress, I always do.

I'm nearing the end of the path, the shouts are louder, but I still can't tell what they say. I'm being pushed from behind, the shadows are impatient.

I'm at the end, climbing up some stairs, but I still don't know what they lead to. The shadows want something, all but one. One is silent, _she_ always is. I know _she_ wants something, all of them do, but _she_ is different. They all are… angry. They are waiting for something, but _she_ is… sad. Whatever they want, she doesn't want it. _She_ is against it, but _she_ can only watch.

I'm at the top, the shadows did something and I can't move, I can only watch, like always. I look around and see _her_ , _she_ stands out amongst the other shadows, like always. _Her_ flaming hair is like a fire in the sea of blurry darkness.

There is a light coming from the side, one of the shadows is bringing it. I know it's bad, but I don't care. I look back at _her_ , I can't see _her_ face, it's too blurry, but I know _she_ 's crying, _she_ always does.

The light comes closer, I know it's bad, but I don't care. I know the red eyes are coming, I see them in the distance. The shadows are all looking at me, they won't see the eyes.

The eyes are here, the shadows are disappearing. I look back at _her_ , I can't see _her_ face, it's too blurry, but I know _she_ 's scared, scared of me, _she_ always is… and _she_ should be…

* * *

 **[Jaune Arc]**

* * *

Please, _please_ stop eyeing me like a hunk of meat! And not in the good way either! Neo was eyeing me like a wolf as she savored her ice cream, and it was making me very uncomfortable.

"Neo, please, I said I was sorry about saying the thing your eyes sometimes do is strange!" She merely grinned and took another lick. I heard a loud gasp and looked to see Silvia had jolted awake, and was just falling back down to the bed form having shot upright. "Oh thank goodness, you awake!" I lowered my voice. "Please make her stop, she's creeping me out." I pleaded, however she seemed to be too busy looking around like something was out to get her, and ignored me completely. "Woah! Calm down!"

"Huh? Wha- Where? Jaune?" Silvia stated, befuddled, before Neo gently nudged me aside and gave silvia a rather concerned look. "Neo? Why are you… Where is… oh. It was just that weird dream again." Neo made a few motions with her hand. I _really_ need to pick up on sign language if I'm going to spending time around her. "Yeah, it's that same dream, I still have it from time to time." A few more gestures, and another concerned look from Neo. "Just a few details, nothing that would explain it." Neo frowned for a moment, before asking something else with her hands. "As good as I can be, I'm definitely not doing that again. What happened after we landed? I can't remember anything after we started landing." Neo simply pointed at me… Crud. what do I say!?

"You uh… passed out and eventually started breaking out in a cold sweat." I managed to sputter out.

"And then Jaunes girlfriend here started freaking out." Wiat, oh.

"Dammit Jeff! I told you we're not a thing! Just look at how concerned she is for Silvia, if anything, _they'd_ be the couple here!" It turned out Jeff, one of the Bullhead pilots who had flew us back, had a sense of humor which almost _everyone_ found annoying, including me.

"Dude? No, just… no." Silvia said while looking at me with this kinda weirded out expression and a subtle shaking of her head. "And what is this couple talk about? You finally found one you'd like to keep, Neo?" Neo simply smiled in response, before frowning and making a few more hand motions that made Silvia groan. "Not you too…"

"Seems somebody's a _player._ " Oh for the love of-

" **Dammit Jeff!** " Two simultaneous shouts and a thrown ice cream cone where our response to his quip.

* * *

 **[Ruby Rose]**

* * *

"-and then Neo went crazy and started stabbing that Aracne like that guy in that once scene of that movie Yang said I was too young to watch!" Professor Port was cool. He might be a bit of 'back in my days' guy, but he was more than willing to listen to a retelling of a memorable Grimm encounter. "And then Weiss finished it off by stabbing it in… whatever you call a spider's neck and basically cooked it from the inside out! Once it was dead Ren basically took the time to try and lessen Silvia's bleeding until the Bullheads showed up."

"Fascinating, truly fascinating Miss Rose. A tale worthy of being passed onto future generations to teach them the value of teamwork, and outside the box thinking. Still, I must ask. What gave you the idea to ride a Nevermore in the first place?" Port finally started asking questions now that I had finished.

"Actually, It was kinda Nora's idea. I got dragged along for the ride. It was awesome though!" I exclaimed.

"Indeed, its must have been a very novel experience. Almost reminds me of the time I tried to tame a Griffon, but that is a story for another time. Just because the Headmaster is redoing the Initiation tomorrow and classes have been pushed back one day, doesn't mean there aren't things to be done." Right. That was a happening. Luckily, me and everyone else involved in the whole Black Ace fiasco was being given a pass. Apparently though, since Yang had a 'near death experience.' she was required to have at least one session of therapy to see if there were lingering problems. Yang's stronger than that though. I doubt she would be phased by it.

"I guess I'll being seeing you when classes start then." I replied as he left to get to work. Not having anything better to do, with Yang being occupied and the others god knows where, I started walking to the Infirmary. I wanted to check on Silvia and Jaune.

" **Dammit Jeff!"** Two simultaneous shouts caught my attention as I reached the door. I'd heard from Nora that apparently Jeff has a _really_ bad sense of humor. Like Yang, but worse. Opening the door, I was greeted to the sight of Jaune and Neo standing next to Silvia's bed, Jeff was sitting down on a chair some distance away, grinning and wiping something off of his face and both Jaune and Silvia were facepalming.

"Silvia! You're awake!" I exclaimed gleefully.

"Hey, Ruby. What's up?" Silvia asked me, trying to act like she wasn't in any pain at all.

"Not much. Professor Ozpin made an announcement earlier, there will be another attempt at Initiation tomorrow, since ours was canceled because of the whole Black Ace… thing. But they do let us pass, we just have to wait for tomorrow to get sorted into teams. Everything was pushed back a day, so everyone is either relaxing, or doing… stuff." Last I saw Ren was busy doing some kind of meditation thing, Pyrrha was training, Nora was blabbing her mouth off at Blake over tuna sandwiches, Sky and Russell were in therapy for something, and Weiss… still didn't really wanna talk to me...

"Well, that's a relief. I sure wouldn't be able to go through another adventure so soon." Silvia tried to get more comfortable, only to wince in pain.

"Right… Professor Ozpin said that you and Jaune will be excused from work in some of the classes, just for a bit, before you recover fully." I mentioned, smiling a bit at the look of relief on Jaune's face

"That's nice of him. Where's Yang by the way?" Silvia asked quizzically.

"She's… having a therapy session." I muttered out. Unfortunately loud enough for Silvia to hear.

"Why would she need that?" Now Silvia was starting to sound concerned.

"She doesn't. It's just that… there is some rule about having one session if you go through something that could cause some problems. A near death experience apparently counts as that. I… I thank you, for saving her." I could feel myself deflate as I started thinking about what nearly happened.

"Ruby… I'd say getting hurt is worth it if you save someone, besides, it's not like I got hurt by actually saving her, I just got caught using the same trick twice, it happens, don't feel bad about it." Silvia tried to rationalize. "Wait… did you say that a near death experience means mandatory therapy session? Uhh… I hate therapy, never works for me..." She made a long, drawn out groan. Which cause Neo to smirk a little. I can only imagine how Yang would handle therapy.

* * *

 **[Yang Xiao Long]**

* * *

 _Why did she have to talk about the hair!_ I take the time to condition it, comb it, and keep it at just the right length, and she has the _gall_ to say I have a vanity issue!? Just because I love the rush of a fight and try to look cool doesn't mean I can't take pride in my appearance damnit! Seriously, the damn Ice Queen is more fixated with her appearance and nobody calls _her_ out on it! _Never again!_ I am never seeing a therapist again! My hate for them burns with the fury of a million suns!

"Yang. you need to calm down." Wha- Ren?

"Oh don't you tell me to _calm down_ too! I'm already angry enough form a freaking shrink trying to psychoanalyze me, I don't need yo-"

"Your Semblance is leaking and it's terrifying most of the students. Do you think your sister would want to see you like this?" What is he… oh. Not again! Taking a deep breath, I managed to calm enough for my Semblance to stop flaring.

"No, she wouldn't. And I'm not proud of the times she did see me like that." I muttered that last part under my breath.

"Hmm… What happened?" For dusts sake Ren, you tell me to calm down, and then you ask me about what pissed me off in the first place!?

"What, you want to try to psychoanalyze me too?" grumbled out.

"No, I'm simply concerned for you as a friend. Please, tell me what happened." I growled out a negative.

"I'll tell you when I'm not feeling like punching a hole in the wall is a good idea. Now, I'm going to go hit something, then I'll go find Ruby. See you later."

* * *

 **[Blake Belodonna]**

* * *

"These Tuna sandwiches are _good_. Like really good. No wonder you love them so much." Note to self, never eat with Nora again. The only reason I'm still here is because tuna sandwiches are irresistible to me. Not to mention she just move around so much I wanna swat at her. "Hey Blake? Why do you wear that bow? I don't think I've _ever_ seen you without it." Ok, I'm definitely not hanging around with her anytime soon.

"We all have our quirks. Ruby takes her hood everywhere as well." I glared at her for asking such an odd question.

"Really? Because combined with the way you tend to glare at things and your love of tuna, it really makes you seem like a cat. I mean, just look at your shadow." looking at it, I did indeed see the resemblance. I quickly shifted my eyes from side to side, checking if anyone else was too close, just because I have already prepared a response for that type of question doesn't mean that I want everyone to hear it.

"Believe it or not, there is an actual reason for that." I muttered out, choosing my next words carefully.

"Oh… so mysterious! Well, don't leave me waiting, I hate waiting." Nora, said, practically enraptured.

"I was… I was raised by a cat Faunus. I picked up a few habits from her, and you can probably guess the reason for the bow now." I hesitantly said, fishing for a reaction.

"Ohhhhhh." Nora's voice dropped into a whisper. "I thought you were totally trying to hide you _were_ a cat faunus." She was staring at me intently. "I saw that, I saw your bow twitch!" she accused. I spent _so_ long planning this and my secrets going to get revealed on the first day!? "Dont worry, I wont tell anyone." I narrowed my eyes. "Seriously Blake? Do I look like someone who would try and hold that over your head? I mean, if I could, I'd get a pair as well."

"You… what?" My mental train of thought derailed, crashed, and went up in a brilliant fireball upon hearing that statement.

"First of all, they're adorable. Second, I bet they aren't just for show, can you imagine how much better I would be if I had super hearing? No one would be able to sneak past me and steal my pancakes! Although that does rise a question: what it like having four ears?" She gushed.

"I… You… What… but everybody else…" I stammered out. If the hyper girl could figure me out so fast, then what about everybody else?!

"You don't need to worry. I'm just a lot more observant than most, well, at least that's what Ren tells me." Watching her facial features proved she at the very least believed it. I couldn't help but thank whatever higher power may or may not have existed. "Speaking of, where is Ren anyway?"

* * *

 **[Weiss Schnee]**

* * *

That Siliva. Her and that silly walking ice cream are enigmas. Silvia doesn't seem to fit what little information I've been able to dig up, and this Neopolitan girl only showed up a few years back. Oh… what's this? Neopolitan has a criminal record? I should have known they were criminals! I wouldn't be surprised if Silvia was using a fake name at this point. What did she do… theft, pickpocketing… is that all? I mean, it's not good that she's a criminal, but those are rather petty. Well within the scope of an Academy pardon.

The question is how she got out of Atlas. They were, and still are, really cracking down on crime. After it was found out that bigger criminal organisations, like the White Fang degenerates, are using common thieves and pickpockets to gather information for staging bigger plays, Atlas military decided to not allow any of these potential informants to continue endangering society. She should have never made it past a checkpoint. Why was she even doing it anyway? Did she do it for the thrill of it? She was rather young back then, is it possible that she may have been living on the street? Even then, that is no excuse for stealing, she should have just asked the proper authorities for help.

I was scrolling through mostly irrelevant information until one picture caught my eye. Neo's distinctive hairdo in the background of a photo. And she was standing by someone who greatly resembled a younger Silvia, though she wasn't so unnaturally pale as she is now. So they knew each other for at least a few years, that explains how Silvia can understand Neo's sign language.

Since searching for pictures proved to be at least somewhat productive, I decided to continue that way for now, finding a few more shortly after. It seems that Neo moved from Atlas around two years ago, as there were no more photos with her in it since that time. Well, there was one, a picture of Neo, being compared to a picture of this lady with black hair and clothing. Something about Neo disappearing from Atlas a week before this lady appeared in Vale. Then again, if it came from the man the net know as TinFoilHatsInc, then it should be taken with a few grains of salt, or a lot of it. I'll note it down as something to look into later, but I'm not going to bother with it anytime soon, not while there are other things to look into.

But that two year gap between fleeing Atlas and entering Beacon is kinda bugging me now. What kind of nefarious scheme could she have planned and instigated in that time?

* * *

 **[Sky Lark]**

* * *

The first thing I saw when I walked into the room was two halves of a table shoved in a corner, and a second table placed overtop a small pile of splinters.

"Okay. Yang is officially _terrifying_ when she's angry. I mean, what if that was your _spine_." Russell stated, shuddering a little as he spoke.

"Dude. I do _not_ need that image on top of everything else." I shuddered. Seeing the Black Ace brought back horrible, horrible memories. I did want to have to picture Yang snapping me like a twig over her knee in addition.

A loud cough caught my attention. "Yes, it would be inadvisable to further traumatise your teammates, mister Thrush." I jumped in fright. Sitting on the chair that was across the table from us, was a peach haired female who only would have made it up to maybe my nose or so, and wearing a orange summer dress. "Let me guess. You didn't notice I was here? It seems to happen to everyone, they either don't notice me at all or assume I'm another student."

"Sorry, we weren't…" I stammered out, worried I'd offend her.

"That's ok, it even comes in handy from time to time. Anyway, introductions are in order, don't you think? I'm Doctor Sophia Peach, Beacon's biology professor and therapist. Now, unlike most others, who only come here because they are required to do so, the two of you scheduled a session on your own, even before you were called in for the mandatory session. That means you already know the first step to recovery, you already know that there is a problem. Let's talk about it then." She said, before waiting for us to work up the courage to speak.

"I-It's… It's a friend of ours." I choked out, fighting back tears.

"Two friends, actually. They were…" Russel wasn't so successful though.

"Shh, you don't need to rush into it. Start at the beginning, when you teamed up in the forest. What did you do when you found each other?" Peach calmly asked.

"We… he took… Cardin took command as soon as we were all together." I felt my hands clench into fists as I spoke.

"He wanted to go through the caves, he said… he said we'll get there faster that way. That… that he'll be the first one there." Russel added on.

"He didn't… Didn't know that the sheer amount of webbing ment an Arachne nest. I tried to get him to listen but he just called me a coward." I could feel my chest tighning as I recounted what happend.

"I… I at least realized this was a bad idea and tried to back him up on it, but Cardin… he just got angry! He called us chicken and just… grabbed Dove and started dragging him along." Russel's breathing was becoming erratic.

"He said that if we are too scared to follow him, he'll just find someone else to boss around. One moment he was just dragging Dove along the next… I didn't even hear him scream, he just vanished in a eruption of dirt, and Dove… He didn't want to go with Cardin, I could tell, but he didn't want to resist him either… when that thing got Cardin, he didn't even make it two steps before it got him too… and that scream as he was pulled underground… If only he listened to us…" Why. Why wouldn't he listen!?

"Now, don't go dwelling on the past, it never does any good. I want you to know that you are doing great, it will take time to fully come to terms with what happened, but I believe you can do it." She paused for a moment. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but I thought you said Cardin was your friend. The way you talk about him doesn't make him look that way."

"It's al-alright. We know." Russel managed to push out.

"He didn't use to be like that, he used to be much nicer, but something happened to him, changed him… I don't know what it was though, he never told us. The old Cardin helped me get through it when my parents were killed, the new one would probably just laugh at me…" I muttered.

"I'm sorry to hear that. But I'm curious, how did it happen? If you don't mind talking about it." She asked, now very curious.

"I… It's something I'd rather not talk about now. I already got over it, but now is just… not the time for it." I felt Russel place a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"Well then. I do believe I should be letting you two go, it's getting late and the team assignments are tomorrow." She said after looking at her clock.

* * *

 **[Ruby Rose] - next day**

* * *

I still can't believe this is actually happening! Well, they told us yesterday, but I was worried for Silvia, and kinda bummed out because of Weiss. And Silvia apparently wasn't quite up to standing yet, so Neo was carting her around in a wheelchair, which just made me plain sad. But now it's really happening!

"And now for the last few teams. The remaining students have demonstrated extraordinary tenacity. When cornered by not one, but three B-class Grimm, they not only didn't falter in the face of such overwhelming odds, but came out victorious. I'd say all twelve of them have more than earned their places in this academy." Ozpin took one of his dramatic pauses. "I present to you, Russel Thrush, Sky Lark, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long of team LYBR, lead by Sky Lark."

I'm not with Yang? _Nooooooo!_

"Jaune Arc, Pyrrha Nikos, Weiss Shnee and Lie Ren of team JWPR, lead by Jaune Arc."

Oh thank gosh i'm not with the ice queen. That would have been _awkward._ On the other hand jaune appeared relieved.

"And the final team of this year. Ruby Rose, Nora Valkyrie, Silvia Shade and Neopolitan of team RSNN, lead by Ruby Rose."

Hold on. _I'm the leader!?_ I had to fight the urge to hide my face as everyone nearby stared at me. I suddenly felt arms wrap around me and turned to see Neo grinning happily. The embarrassment intensified tenfold. " _Neooooo, stop iiiit._ "

"Oh my gosh, I get to be with the mysterious ice cream lady!" Nora suddenly interjected. With Neo now distracted giving Nora a _look_ , I saw Ren giving Silvia some kinda list. He either said something about her being the responsible one or something about corgies... I miss Zwei. "Awww, don't look so down Ruby, I know what'll help! Quick, Neo, bring them too… _our dorm._ " Oh my gosh. Shes acting like a cheesy movie villain. The two of them quickly ushered me and Silvia in the direction of the dormitories, Nora grinning like a true cartoon villain. Next thing I knew, we were there… And where did Neo get my baggage from!? "Now my minions, we _decorate!_ " Silvia was just glancing between Nora and whatever was on the paper Ren had given her. The beds were pretty standard, basic wooden frames, there were a few bookshelfs along one side of the room. I saw Silvia eventually wheel herself over to a bed and claim it as her own, but not before opening one of her suitcases and making a very displeased face, before shutting and sliding it underneath the bed, alongside another suitcase, the kind you see in almost every mob movie when the money transfer happens, with evil looking symbols on it.

A loud 'thump' distracted the both of us to see that… "How did the two of you lug a mini-fridge and television up here?!" Silvia merely stared at Neo, gaping like a fish, before pointing and trying to do the speaking thing but failing miserably. After a few moments she instead resorted to those hand motions Neo normally does, only to groan in response to whatever Neo said back to her in that same language.

* * *

 **[Sky Lark]**

* * *

It's totally not there! How do I lose something that large!? "Have any of you seen my miniature refrigerator?"

"Nope, sorry man."

"Why would I need that?"

"Did you… Leave it running?"

" **Damnit Yang!"**

* * *

 **[Ruby Rose]**

* * *

"Just… help me get the painting up." She eventually resigned. Once it was up, Nora seemed to get really excited over what was a _really old_ painting of a rather evil looking castle.

"Oh! Is that Castle Grimmskull!?" Grimmskull? That doesn't sound like any place I've heard of...

"I… don't really know? I mean, there was no label on it when I got it." Silvia said, confused.

"Silvia, do _you_ know what Castle Grimmskull is?" I swear Nora froze before her head _slowly_ turned to face me.

"You Don't… Neo! We need popcorn ASAP, I'm showing you all the glory of cheesy old Saturday morning cartoons!" Neo saluted and dashed off, while nora begun setting up the TV. Turns out it was one of those newer models that could interface with Scrolls.

"Silvia, help." I whimpered. What have I unleashed? When I didn't hear a response I turned and saw an empty wheelchair and smoke escaping out of the window followed by a muffed 'ow!' You traitor!


	5. Chapter 5

**So sorry for the wait, some stuff came into the picture suddenly and progress was extremely slow. I'm not sure if we'll be able to resume the one chapter per week schedule, but hopefully it won't take quite this long next time.**

* * *

 **[Jaune Arc]**

* * *

So. Glynda herself was the one who was teaching Aura theory? The thought honestly made me nervous. I knew next to _nothing_ about aura. My only hope was to try and not be called upon to answer anything and try to learn from this class. As we filtered in, I Found myself sitting beside Silvia and Ruby, both of whom had already been seated by the time I entered, and looked rather tired. "The two of you look like you didn't get much sleep. What happened?"

"You see… we were supposed to be sleeping… and I jumped out the window." Silvia said tiredly, with several pauses.

"Wait. whaaaaaaaat?!" I blurted out. "Silvia, if you need someone to talk to… I'm here." I blurted out, now _very_ worried for Silvia's wellbeing.

"Wha… what are you talking about? It didn't work anyway… Nora brought me back..." Silvia tonelessly drawled out.

"Ummmm… I'm starting to feel like I'm missing some context here." I asked, now _very_ confused. It sounded more like she was trying to _escape_ instead of harm herself.

"What context? Just be glad she didn't torture you… like she did with us." That last statement was punctuated by a yawn. I winced a little as she grabbed my still bandaged arm, and looked me dead in the eye.

"What did she do that would drive you to jump out a window?" What kind of sick horrors did Nora unleash on them.

"Who, Nora? She kept us… awake, with some… really bad cartoons, that she forced us to binge watch… and Neo helped her. All because of… because of some dumb painting…" Oh no… Neo helped?

Before I had a chance to respond, the classroom door opened and everybody went silent as Glynda stepped into the room. Even Silvia and Ruby seemed a little more awake. "Greetings, class. As all of you should already know, my name is Glynda Goodwitch, and I'll be your professor for Aura theory. The purpose of this class is to bring your knowledge on the topic of Aura at least to the Academy standard. It might seem like a waste of time to you now, but you wouldn't believe the amount of misconceptions and plain lack of information that is corrected here." Oh thank goodness. I think I might just stand a chance after all! "Let's start with one of the most important, and also the most glossed over phenomenon that is commonly present Huntsman and other Aura trained warriors. Can any of you tell me about 'Semblance Acclimation'?"

Weiss raised her hand. "It is an ongoing process, during which one undergoes physical changes. Changes that are either beneficial for use of one's Semblance, or as a consequence of it." Weiss stated matter of factly.

"That is correct, Miss Schnee. Our Auras and Semblances alter our bodies to allow us the maximum benefit from using them. Have any of you noticed some of these changes? Note that the process tends to be slow going in most cases, so it's entirely possible for you to simply not have noticed them." Glynda elaborated, scanning across the lot of us.

"Oh! I have one!" Nora blurted out, hopping and waving her arms. "I haven't actually noticed it myself, but Ren told me that my eyes started glowing a bit. It's not that visible now, since there already is light everywhere, but you could totally see it if it was dark. He also said something about becoming more hyperactive or something, but who would actually believe that!?" Was this girl for real? How could glowy eyes be related to any sort of semblance? Does she have like laser vision or something?

"And what about you miss Xiao Long? Have you noticed any differences since acquiring your semblance?" Glynda inquired, abruptly facing Yang with an interrogative stare.

"Well… my already awesome hair got even shinier and healthier… and now that I think about it, I don't remember ever getting burned from anything, does that count?" Yang stated, now looking rather proud.

"Very good, I believe all of you should have a good idea of what this phenomenon is about by now. Since this is only the first class of many, all you have to do for the rest of today's class is to think back and write down any and all instances of this phenomenon happening to you. If you can't think of any, there is no need for concern, most of the changes that happen are internal in nature and not visible at first glance. If you have any questions, you can ask at any time before the end of the class. Now get to work everyone." Oh… crap. How am I supposed to answer something like this if I don't have a semblance? I don't know how long I spent panicking, but the bell rang for lunch break.

" _Fooooooood_ " Ruby quite literally stood up and _shuffled_ in the direction of the cafeteria. While Silvia…

"Uh, Silvia, did you fall asleep?" She wasn't moving and was slouched over her desk. I will not hesitate to admit I panicked a bit until I checked her pulse.

"Seriously? _Again_?" Nora was walking towards the two of use. "I thought you learned the first time I did it." I swear her grin went from mischievous to downright malicious for a split second before she extended two fingers and honest to dust _electricity_ started arcing between them. She jabbed them towards Silvia and I _totally_ didn't jump away in fright.

"Wha hu ha buha!" Silvia made some strange noises while spazzing out a bit, followed up by her falling out of her seat and ending up on the floor, her hair now a huge ball of fluff. "Nora! Why..."

"You fell asleep sleepy head!" I'm starting to think I would prefer Neo over her at this point. I don't like the idea of being electrocuted just to wake me up!

"And why is that I wonder… do you know how long it will take me to make my hair presentable again?" Silvia groaned out, now wide awake.

"Well I thought you would be even crankier if you missed lunch." Nora replied, smiling like this was a perfectly normal thing.

"...I'm tempted to use _the list_ , but food sounds good right about now… and coffee, lot of coffee… not a drop for you though." Silvia, thoroughly displeased, stood up and dusted herself off. Huh. She's wearing pants instead of the typical skirt, and she has her belt on. Does she have something against skirts?

"Uh, silvia, you need a hand? I saw you in a wheelchair the other day?" I asked, only now realizing the one she was in the other day was nowhere to be seen

"No. I only had to use it yesterday, something about taking it easy or something… waste of time if you ask me." She grumbled and started searching her pockets for something, eventually pulling out a silvery and somewhat ornate hair comb. Her hair must have been really messed up, because she spent the entire walk to the cafeteria fixing it and she still wasn't done. As we walked to the cafeteria, I noticed Weiss in the corner of my eye, looking at Silvia with a raised eyebrow. When we approached the tables, the first thing I saw was Ruby downing a whole thermos of coffee in one go, with Yang egging her on.

"Chug, chug, chug, chu- Oh hey Silvia!" Yang stopped and froze, making a small snort.

"Hey, Yang. Is there more?" Silvia said, still very much tired and pointing at the thermos of coffee. Yang pointed towards the coffee machine in the corner, where Silvia began a slow walk towards, the students clearing out of her way, comb hanging forgotten in her hair.

"Jaune? You got any clue why my sister was acting like a zombie before she got all that coffee in her system?" Yang asked in concern.

"Something about Nora forcing her and Silvia to watch awful cartoons all night." I stated, before seeing Ruby's eyes narrow, the caffeine having finally kicked in enough for her to function properly.

"It was so awful! We just wanted to rest and sleep, but Nora would shock us awake if we got close! She said we needed to appreciate the classics! Well if she tries again, then I'll do a classic and duct tape her to a wall!"

"I'm right here you know?" Nora chimed in. "Oh, can I have some?"

"NO!" A loud shout sounded through the cafeteria, followed by a sound of coughing. Turning around, I saw Silvia recovering from a coughing fit, holding a cup of coffee in her good hand. "No coffee for Nora, she's forbidden from having coffee. She has more than enough energy as is."

"Awwwww, Silvia, you no fun." Nora whined and pouted as Silvia walked over to us.

"You didn't let me sleep the whole night. Talk to me about fun after I get enough sleep." Silvia growled out, slightly less cranky than before. "They give out food over there, I'm going to get myself some food. No coffee for Nora!" Nora followed her muttering something about pancakes. Meanwhile I was just waiting for the line to thin before I got myself anything. Lineups were never fun to be in.

Yang still seemed to be holding in laughter. It wasn't that long before Silvia came back with a plate of seafood, and finally noticed what Yang was doing.

"Huh? What's so funny?" She asked while looking around.

"Y-your… you left your comb in your hair… and left your hair half combed." Yang couldn't handle herself anymore and started laughing. Silvia stopped and reached up into the mess on her head, finding the comb and pulling it out.

"Stop laughing. It's not my fault my hair is like this, Nora and her antics are responsible." She grumbled and looked away as she continued to fix her hair.

Noticing the line had thinned out, I went to try some of their samosas, from what I heard they were really good. As I walked there, I saw Blake walking to a table with a plate full of assorted seafoods, must be popular if Silvia got some too. Nora… Judging by the angry shouting, I think she took _all_ the pancakes. I eventually returned with a couple on my plate, to hear Silvia voicing her displeasure.

"How did you manage to deal with her?" Silvia half groaned, half asked Ren in a very resigned tone.

"Silvia, isn't that why he gave you that list?" Ruby pointed out. "And you and Neo seem kinda close, yet you can handle her antics."

"Neo never forced me to watch something for the whole night before, and the list says that when it comes to old cartoons, resistance is futile." Silvia replied in a defeated tone.

"Does it say anything about getting shocked?" Ruby asked hopefully.

"Yeah, confiscate her fork. Not sure why, but I couldn't even find it to take it away from her." Silvia complained, but at least her hair was already in it's usual ponytail.

"It takes a lot of patience, understanding and a stern hand every once in awhile." Ren stated, having walked over to our table

"Easier said than done..." Silvia groaned.

"Just don't let her think she has defeated you, she won't stop if she thinks she can get away with it." Ren tried to comfort her.

"Yeah, I know… it's just… my shoulder isn't making it any easier, and it won't be for a while." Silvia stated, holding a hand to her wound.

"Well, look on the bright side."Yang said through a mouthful of food. "You'll have an awesome scar, and from what I've seen, dudes love scars."

"Me, scar? As if." Silvia scoffed. "I don't get scars, if I did, my face would look very different today." She said with a combination of relief and annoyance.

"Oh crap… how bad was it?" Yang said, now slightly concerned.

"Bad batch of Fire Dust blew up in my face, they said that I almost lost an eye from how bad it was. I don't remember it though, got knocked out by the blast and woke up in a hospital all bandaged up. But you would never be able to tell it happened if I didn't tell you right now." I felt my own eyes widen. How did she heal from something like that?

"Damn. that is awsome!" Yang blurted out, amazed at how Silvia could heal perfectly from injuries.

"Maybe, but it still takes time, and it hurts way more as it's healing than what I was told is normal." Silvia lamented.

"How much more?" I inquired.

"I'm not sure. I just know that the doctors measured pain signals being sent at times there should be nothing to cause it. Something to do with the fact that the way my body heals got influenced by my Semblance." She elaborated. Was that a part of the whole 'Semblance acclimation' thing? If so, I'm slightly afraid of what it will do to me.

"Freaky." Ruby quipped.

"Yeah… man this is good." Silvia stated between mouthfuls, enraptured by the taste of the salmon she was eating. I noticed Nora staring intently at _how_ Silvia was eating, which confused me, she wasn't doing anything weird like eating the fish with a spoon, was she?

Soon we had all finished eating, and where just merely chatting at this point. A some point Nora brought up how depriving the whole school of coffee would be the closest thing to simulating a zombie apocalypse without some kind of super virus of magic.

"All I'm saying is, that if we keep them up long enough and don't give them coffee, then they'll totally move like a horde. I mean, it worked with Ruby." Nora pointed out

"But they wouldn't attack anyone, they would just shuffle around." Yang was quick to shut the whole idea down, possibly fearing Nora actually performing such an experiment.

"Not if you were the one keeping them up in the first place." Ruby added… rather ominously.

"Or you could just have coffee with you, they'd go after coffee like normal zombies after a brain." Silvia supplied. Why are you supporting the crazy girl who kept electrocuting you last night!

"Or like Ruby when she smells cookies." Yang interjected, snickering at the look on Ruby's face as she said that.

"Now that's an idea. What do you think, Ren?" Nora asked, deep in thought.

"I think we should get to our next class, others are already leaving." Oh crud, he's right! We're going to be late for class!

* * *

 **[Ruby Rose]**

* * *

Thanks to Ren, we got to the class with time to spare. I was looking forward to this one, Grimm Studies with Professor Port. After that fun discussion I had with him a few days ago, I couldn't wait to see what his class is like. Unfortunately, it wasn't what I was expecting.

"...backed into a corner, I had no choice but to fight that wretched monster. So I took the broken blade of my weapon like a dagger and lunged at the Deathstalker with every intention to sever its tail!" Professor Port decided to highlight the importance of never giving up, kinda like we didn't give up during the 'Initiation incident', thinking about it now, that could be why he's doing it… ugh! Focus! Oh, why did I have to drink that much coffee? Professor Port's story about fighting a Deathstalker, alone and with a broken weapon seemed interesting, but I just couldn't focus after all that coffee! I tried to pay attention, I really did! But I just couldn't resist doodling on a piece of paper, even if it wasn't any good.

"Now, what do we have here?" Professor Port said from right in front of me… wait what?! "Miss Rose, while I do find your desire to better yourself artistically admirable, I do not condone doing so during my class. If you do not find the story important enough to listen to, perhaps demonstrating your combat prowess is more aligned with your interests." Oh no… And he took my drawing too! Perhaps sitting in the front row wasn't such a good idea.

Resigned that this just isn't my day, I made my way to the neighboring changing room to get ready. If I could just explain myself after the class is over, maybe he won't hold it against me? Feeling very nervous on my way back, I took a quick look at what the other were doing. Yang and Nora were waving little flags that had my face on it. Blake, Russel and Sky seemed disinterested and didn't pay much attention. Jaune and Pyrrha had sympathetic expressions on their faces, but didn't cheer like Yang was doing. Ren was his usual almost expressionless self, Neo seemed excited and Weiss was looking at Silvia, who seemed to be drawing something? Did she seriously start drawing right after I got in trouble for it!? Uh, the nerve of that traitor. I walked to the front of the class where Professor Port was doing last checks on a cage that had some type of Grimm in it. That wasn't there before, he must have brought it over when I was out of the room.

"Miss Rose, are you ready?" Well, here goes nothing. I nodded and prepared myself for the fight. Professor Port used a his scroll to unlock the cage and backed away far enough to not immediately be spotted by whatever was in that cage. What came out was, well… strange. At first I thought it was a Beowolf, due to its head, but it didn't have any fur, scales covering its body instead. Its front claws were too big, its legs were wrong too, it was way heavier armored and it had sharp spines coming from its back. The most striking difference was probably the tail, instead of the classic furry tail, it had a long lizard tail. All in all, it looked like some lizard Beowolf.

I was broken out of my observations by the Grimm charging at me. Waiting for it to come closer so I could take its head of during a dodge, I was surprised that it suddenly jumped for me at higher speeds then what I have seen from Beowolves before. Barely managing to get out of the way by using recoil of my baby, I wen't in for a slash against its side as it passed me. But its armor just deflected my strike! Not willing to be outdone by this thing, I boosted over it in an attempt to rake it across its back as I passed. Once again however, Crescent Rose's blade just bounced off! The fact that I got almost hit by that Grimm's tail as I stopped didn't improve my mood in the slightest. Seeing as my attacks were ineffective so far, I instead went on the defensive, dodging its lunges and deflecting swipes, observing its movements for weakspots. I noticed something during the last series of slashes it tried to hit me with, it can balance on only its hind legs, probably because of the tail, but it stays crouched down, unlike normal Beowolves who rise up when standing on two legs. Dodging another lunge, I was suddenly forced to block against its tail, which I only barely managed to do. To my horror though, the tail wrapped around my precious and started trashing. I was holding on for my life as I was being waved around like some sort of flag, until a quick jerk to one side and then the other made me loose grip, flinging me across the room, Crescent Rose sailing in the opposite direction. Luckily, I rolled to a stop before I could impact the wall.

Shaking off my disorientation from the sudden move thanks to my Semblance, I saw the Grimm tuck into a ball and roll at me at high speed, just like a Boarbatusk would do… wait, Boarbatusk? Narrowly rolling out of the way of the rolling ball of death, I got an idea. Sprinting for my weapon, I looked behind at the Grimm, the impact caused a huge dent in the wall, that would hurt to get hit by, even with Aura. I was almost there when the Grimm burst out of the wall and straight at me, just as I was reaching for Crescent Rose, the Grimm used its tail as a spring and launched at me faster than ever before. It was only because of my Semblance that I could react in time, grabbing my scythe and using my Semblance to quickly sidestep out of the way, I held Crescent Rose in its path. My quick reaction was rewarded with satisfying shriek of pain from the Grimm that I couldn't help but smirk at, as Crescent Rose's blade sunk into its unprotected belly, just like with a Boarbatusk. My moment of victory lasted only for a second, because the beast's momentum made me once again lose hold of my weapon. The Grimm crashed into the ground, Crescent Rose still stuck in its stomach, and was trying to stand up from its sprawled position. I saw that my scythe, while firmly embedded in the Grimm, was slowly being pushed more into the monster, as its weight pushed Crescent Rose against the ground. Getting an idea from an action movie Yang told me not to watch, I used my Semblance to accelerate myself and jumped against the wall, high above the Grimm, and pushed off of the wall, launching myself at its back. I flipped myself around in the air and came down on it feet first, fully impaling it on Crescent Rose and finally killing it.

Calming my breathing and heart, I noticed a sound of cheering and applause faded into existence and I noticed I was still in the classroom. I must have been so focused I blocked out everything around me again, helps against distractions, but I now realised that I also could have missed any helpful advice or warning from my team, I'll need to work on that.

"Bravo, what a truly inspiring display of combat prowess!" Professor Port congratulated as I was suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion. I stumbled down from the already dissolving Grimm and fell on my knees, as I was too exhausted to stand. "Whoa! Are you alright, miss Rose?"

"She's just exhausted, nothing to worry about." I heard Yang say as she and Silvia came to my side, Yang helping me to my feet while I saw that Silvia pulled Crescent Rose free of the dissolving Grimms body with her good arm, examining it for something. She looked at Yang confused.

"Opposite side of the bolt." Yang pointed out, before Silvia found and activated the transformation mechanism, causing Crescent Rose to switch into its compact form. I would normally be upset that someone is touching her without permission, but Silvia is my friend and teammate, that and I'm not exactly in a position to do it myself. As Yang was helping me back to my seat, I saw Silvia stumble from the corner of my eye.

"Miss Shade, you know you shouldn't strain yourself too much, you'll aggravate your injury." Professor Port admonished Silvia as he checked on her. She took a deep breath and steadied herself by holding the nearest desk.

"I know, I'm not sure why I even did it… instinct I guess? I'll be more careful." Silvia conceded and properly found her footing. I could swear I saw her flick the fingers of her free hand as she was steadying herself, but I more than likely imagined it.

"What was that about, Silvia?" Yang quietly asked after we were all back in our seats. The rest of our group was either sending me congratulatory smiles, eying me in concern, or just not really paying attention.

"Nothing much..." Silvia said a bit groggily, before smirking. "Just a bit of acting to get an opportunity."

"What kind of opportunity?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Just to get something back..." Silvia said mysteriously and gave me a folded piece of paper, which just confused me. Seriously, like… what? Carefully unfolding it while Professor Port was busy venting Grimm smoke out of the room, I was met with… my picture? But Professor Port put it in his pocket! How does that… Did Silvia just pickpocket the Professor?! How? She didn't even touch him! I quickly hid it, just so it wouldn't get me in trouble again. Catching movement in the corner of my eyes I looked and noticed that Neo had a strange expression, a weird mix of pride and disapproval is my best guess. On the other side, Weiss was really glaring at Silvia for some reason, I just hope she won't end up hating my entire team.

"Well, now that this is taken care of, I'm sure many of you are curious about the Grimm you saw a few minutes ago." Professor's voice once again gained everyone's attention, as he was clearly done with removing the smoke from the room. "For those of you who don't know, that was _Desert Wolf_ from deserts of Menagerie. A bizarre reptilian Grimm that shares some of its features with a common Beowolf, Boarbatusk and strangely enough, even with the elusive Clawlet. Thankfully, it's only capable of burrowing through loose sand. Vast majority of you won't ever see one during your entire Huntsman carrier, which is something you should be glad for. They are vicious pack hunters that ambush their prey from below, rolling after those who try to flee down a dune. The one you saw in class today was a very young specimen, thankfully not yet smart enough to be a true danger to any of you."

Wow, a Grimm from Menagerie? This one was tough to beat as is, and it was weak and out of its environment?! I heard that they have it bad there, but after an experience like this? The people living there must be some of the best Hunters in existance!

"And with this we come to the end of today's lesson, don't forget to check your scrolls for your assignments and when they are due. And Miss Rose, it appears I was mistaken. You were in fact taking detailed note on how to most effectively deal with a Deathstalker." Wait, not only did Silvia pickpocket my drawing from him, she swapped it with her own? "This is the level of dedication you all should strive for. Knowledge can be your greatest weapon, after all-"

I suddenly felt _really_ tired. "Yang, I think the caffi-"

* * *

 **[Nora Valkyrie]**

* * *

Oh wow, Ruby crashed _hard_. She literally fell asleep mid sentence! That's even worse then me after I do that one awesome trick. She is so going to be groggy when she wakes up, and she can't use that one trick like I can... I hope they don't start hiding the forks or replacing them with plastic ones like Ren did.

We all slowly trickled out of the room, with Yang carrying Ruby, and were about to set our separate ways, but two things brought some much needed distraction. Weiss was stomping over to Silvia, looking angry and clearly wanting something, which was fortunately halted by Silvia's Scroll ringing.

"Huh, why is he calling now?" I heard Silvia mutter. She accepted the call and started walking away, probably to have at least somewhat private conversation. "Hello, Father… Yes, of course…" Huh, that's weird, when she started talking, her walk and posture changed. In fact, it looks almost like…

"Oh my gosh, she's like Weiss. She's totally part of an important family!" I realized, thoroughly shocked by this revelation.

"What!? No, she's not! We are nothing alike!" Weiss shouted, offended.

"Yeah… no. I have to agree with Ice Queen on this one, Silvia is not nearly as stuck up." Yang pointed out, with an even more offended 'hey!' from Wiess

"Guys! Just look at her, see how she's pacing? She walks just like Weiss does." I pointed out.

"No, she's not walking like Weiss, she's just… wow, she actually is walking like Weiss." Jaune overheard and noticed it too.

"And that's not all! She was eating like her earlier, and she brought that really old looking painting. Old paintings are expensive." And it was an awesome painting, too!

"You can't seriously believe that! She's a criminal, she has to be! She just got away with pickpocketing a Professor for Dust's sake." Weiss exclaimed angrily.

"I don't know about any paintings, but she was eating normally yesterday… well, as normally as she could with how she's hurt." Yang recalled.

"I actually noticed that too, but I didn't want to comment on it. Still, why would she act like someone from important family one moment, and act nothing like it the next?" Pyrrha questioned.

"She's tired." Ren announced, having sneaked up on us like his usual stealthy self. "Think about it, Nora kept her up the whole night and she is tired. If she is acting to appear less formal, being this tired could cause her to 'slip up' as it were."

"But, why would she do that?" Yang said, now very confused.

"That's what I want to know. And once I find out, you'll all see that she isn't who you think she is. Now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do." Weiss declared and went in the direction of the library. Not long after, Silvia was done with her call, walking back to us while being slightly tense, meaning that whatever her call was about, it wasn't exactly pleasant one.

"Uh, Silvia, is everything alright?" I asked as she approached.

"Huh? Oh yeah, it's fine. Just something came faster than expected. It's… not a problem." She seemed to be somewhat distracted as she said that.

"Are you _suuuure_?" I asked, It was obvious something had her distressed.

"Yes, I am sure. There is nothing that even can be done in the first place, I'll deal with it as it happens. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm getting some more coffee, I'm not comfortable with going to rest now, even if I should." Silvia responded, her fatigue becoming more noticeable in her voice. She showed Ruby's weapon in my arms and walked away without even waiting for any kind of reply, even the way she walked screamed _tired_ , but it also said _proper_. After she walked off, I took it upon myself to lead Yang to our dorm so we could get Ruby in bed.

"Uh, hey Yang?" I asked.

"Yes?" she replied, curious as to what I was going to ask.

"Does she normally crash this hard?" I knew I was the reason she needed that much caffeine, but to crash so hard she was off like a light? I was interested to see if there was a history of this.

"She did it once before. She was left alone in the kitchen for too long and overdosed on sugar somehow. Me and Dad found out because she blurred through the house, looking for drawing supplies. We next saw her about two hours later, splayed on the ground under a window she fell out of as she crashed. And in one hand she had a drawing of the most ridiculous, over the top weapon design ever. Twice the size of Crescent Rose, one side had a giant scythe with a built in chainsaw and artillery class Dust Canon. The other side had axe blades mixed with saw blades and a sniper rifle. And apparently like, ninety percent of it was supposed to be on fire. The whole thing even had a name, Rosemageddon. She actually based her scythe on that abomination after Dad said it was safe to give her the drawing back." Yang stated, snickering.

"Oh _wooow_." I whistled as we approached our dorm, where Neo was watching a cartoon on the television I had provided. Nice to see someone who respects the classics!

* * *

 **[Neopolitan]**

* * *

I couldn't help but keep grinning. _Everything_ that coyote tried to do ended horribly for him, and I found satisfaction in seeing it happen.

"Hi Neo!" I grinned even more as I turned to wave at her. Nora was here, and when Nora was here, _fun_ happens.

"Oh wow. That's a nice painting. You gota TV in here too, and is that a miniature fridge?! ...hold on a minute... That's the same model Sky said went missing!" Oh, you silly silly girl. I came prepared. I got up and looked around in my suitcase, before pulling out and shoving the receipt for it I snagged from Sky in her face.

"Oh. Okay then. It's just coincidence you have the same model then." She said as she put Ruby down on the bed. I put on my best horrified face, before grabbing Iron Rain, and poking her face with it.

"You do realize that isn't going to do anything? Even the smell of fresh baked cookies can't wake her up when she's zonked out like this." I frowned. That's no fun… I poked her once more for good measure.

"Alright, I've had my caffeine, and I'm a functioning member of society once again. Neo? What are you… Oh." Hooray, Silvia's here!

' _Just poking the dead body with a stick.'_ I signed out.

"Ok, you do that, just make sure she is still breathing after you get bored of it." She replied, giving me the go ahead while simultaneously making our guest go wide eyed.

"Umm, _what_ exactly is she planning to do to my sister!?" Oh yeah, she was panicking. Well played Silvia!

"What? She's just going to poke her with a parasol." She said as she pulled out her 'suitcase of evil' out from under her bed.

"Um, Silvia, what is that?" Yang asked, somewhat unsettled by the designs on the suitcase.

"Just something to hold a certain special book of mine." I could tell my friend was holding back a grin as she set it down on her lap and waited a few moments, acting like she was steeling herself. She undid the first latch and through some expertly done sleight of hand made it look like the whole suitcase trembled when she did so. I love seeing her put those tricks I showed her to use!

"Oh sweet Dust what kind of book do you have in there!?" (Yang)

"An old one, I don't really understand it most of the time." Silvia replied, before going silent as she tilted her head, as if listening to something.

"Is that… Is that why the suitcase looks that way? To hold some kind of cursed book?" I was struggling to hold it together, she actually had Yang sounding scared!

"What? No." Silvia said, acting like she was confused. "I got bored one day and painted it with evil looking scribbles just because I felt like it." She promptly opened the case, revealing a large old looking tome, and several smaller blank books, before holding up the tome for Yang to see. "It's just a book, not some soul eating demon."

"Oh, she got you _goooood_." Nora, who had been staying quite the whole time, finally spoke.

Yang started laughing. "Okay, I'll admit, that was a brilliantly played prank. Expect retribution though." Oh _yes_ , another _fun_ one! Someone whos not all 'stop having fun'!

"I just couldn't resist when I saw how you reacted to seeing the suitcase." Silvia chuckled and put the books on her desk.

"What exactly is _in_ that book?" Yang asked.

"I'd rather not say. I know for a fact that there are people who would want to get it, if they even knew that it exists that is." Silvia replied in a hushed tone.

"So what, it's your diary that someone is trying to get to smear you and steal your boyfriend?" Yang joked, causing Silvia to go wide eyed.

"What!? No! What makes you think that!? It's not _my_ diary anyway." Silvia replied, emphasizing the 'my' part of it.

"Okayyyy, i think I just made thing awkward... BYE!" Aww, she ran off… that's no fun at all.

' _What's it_ _really_ _about?'_ I signed.

* * *

 **[Weiss Schnee]**

* * *

I groaned in frustration. The more I looked, the more things seemed to point towards her being part of a family with quite a high status. The numerous photos from formal events and high class parties that have a younger Silvia, or at least someone resembling her, in them is too big of a proof to ignore. That doesn't mean it makes any sense though, why is she nothing like what I see in here!? That's not even counting the newest batch of nonsense from TinFoilHatsInc, claiming that the Shade family are literally a bunch of ghosts that only show up in photos of important social events. I know for a fact that that's not true, since I found a few pictures of normal city life with Silvia on them, most of them had Neo on them too. And that's excluding the fact that i've _physically met_ Silvia.

I can't go on like this, no matter what I find, nothing will be enough of a proof with how contradictory she is. I'll need to either ask her directly, or ask someone else. The civilian servers of Atlas don't have anything worthwhile, but the military ones might. A few short seconds later and I had a call connected.

"Weiss? What could have you calling home so soon?" My sister's slightly shocked face appeared on the screen.

"Hello, Winter. There is something I wanted to ask." I asked, keeping my voice professional.

"You are calling me just to ask a question? This seems very unlike you." My sister sounded slightly confused and interested in what I had to say.

"I know, but… this is kind of important." I emphasised.

"Hmm… well then. What do you wish to know?" She replied, fingers already running across the keyboard in preparation of a deep search.

"What can you tell me about the Shade family?" I said, deciding to not beat around the bush.

"..." I swear Winter went pale, and her eyes widened in shock.

"I looked where I could, but there is nothing on the public servers? I thought you might know something you could tell me." Keep pushing, don't give her a chance to try and turn me away.

"..." Winter was taking deep breaths, clearly picking her words carefully.

"Winter? Is something wrong?" I asked, now concerned by her behaviour.

"Weiss, where did you hear that name?" Her voice was a bit strained, and clearly worried.

"There… there was an argument and the name came up. I got curious, but I couldn't find anything. Why… why is that important?" I asked, now getting somewhat nervous myself.

"Weiss… we don't exactly talk about the Shades." The revelation floored me, a family that us, the Schnee, were hesitant to talk about!?

"What? So… you won't tell me anything?" I asked.

"I didn't say that. But don't expect much." My sister replied, now nervously rubbing her wrists.

"Alright, can you tell me what is so unusual about them?" I asked, before Winter sighed in defeat.

"They're an old family, secretive too. They don't do much publicly and put on a front of appearing just enough to stay in the loop on the dealing in Atlas, but that couldn't be farther from the truth." My sister explained.

"What are you saying? You make it sound like they are a band of criminals hiding in plain sight. What kind of power could they have to get a reputation like this?" I questioned.

"They aren't criminals, not exactly. I said that they put on a front of appearing just enough to stay in the loop, the truth is that they just… _know things,_ if you understand what I'm saying. _Damaging things_. Their power comes from information." Winter elaborated, looking back and forth for something.

"So… they are-" I begun asking, before Winter cut me off.

"I'm sorry, but this is all I can tell you. Take care, sister." She said, before abruptly ending the call. She was… awfully paranoid

I don't even know how long I was sitting there and thinking about what I learned, but it was one of the windows I left open on the terminal that brought me out of it. Quickly checking what it was, I saw that TinFoilHatsInc made a new post. Slightly curious what senseless babble it was this time, I opened it to take a look. There was a picture of Silvia, being compared to… me? What? The title said 'Schnee and Shade, cousins or coincidence?'... what? Just… what is this?! How does that even…? No! I refuse to be left in the dark and be taunted like this! I'm getting to the bottom of this, even if I have to go and ask her directly! Now there is an idea. Only… I don't know where her dorm is! They just vanished during the post initiation ceremony. Groaning, I logged out and took a moment to stretch. Maybe Yang would know, her sister _is_ part of Silvia's team. And Yang's dorm was rather easy to find yesterday, just had to listen for the sound of everyone groaning at her horrible sense of humor. Turns out she was right next door to me, right across the hall actually.

It didn't take long to get to right room, unfortunately, no one was there. Faced with the choice of either waiting for them and go crazy over not doing anything, or keep myself busy by looking for them, I chose the second option and spent a good half hour roaming the halls of Beacon before finally spotting who I was looking for.

"Yang." I growled out between grit teeth. Thoroughly angry from being denied answers because of her absence.

"Err… Hey, Weiss… do you need something?" Yang answered, somewhat concerned.

"Actually, yes. I do need something. Where is your sister's room?" I asked, for once not trying to be diplomatic.

"Is everything ok? Ruby didn't do anything bad, did she?" My answer made her even more concerned.

"No, she didn't. I need to talk to Silvia, but I don't know where their room is." I muttered.

"Again about Silvia? Is this about if she is or isn't from some high up family?" Yang inquired.

"She is dangerous, her whole family is! I need to find out if she is the real deal or not." I snapped, shouting at her. She didn't see the danger I was told about, I had to know.

"Ok, ok! Yeesh… and they say I'm hot tempered." Yang leaned back, startled.

Yang, seriously, this is not the time for puns. I was gritting my teeth in frustration.

"Fine. It's the room right next to ours." Yang said, trying to appease me. It didn't achieve much.

"..." What…?

"You know, just look out of your door, and it's the one immediately to the right from ours." Yang continued, completely obvious to my shock of SIlvia basically hiding right under my nose.

"..." This whole time… she was _that_ close?

"Weiss? Is everyth-" I tuned her out after that. I got what I wanted, if she want's to follow me to Silvia, that's her choice now.

I quickly covered the distance back to the dorms, not sparing a single glance at anyone I passed on the way. I knew Yang was indeed following me, but that wasn't my problem now. Stopping in front of the right door, which indeed was right next to ours, I took a deep breath, trying to at least somewhat control the anger that has been building up for the last half hour. It wouldn't be very productive if I couldn't even listen to her. After standing there for a few more seconds, I knocked on the door and opened it. I looked over the room and it's occupants, letting out a silent breath of relief that this is indeed the right room. Ruby was sleeping in one of the beds, Neo and Nora seemed to be watching some cartoons on a TV and… wait… TV? Where did they get a TV? And is that a mini-fridge too? No! Focus Weiss! Silvia was sitting behind a desk, surrounded by several books and looked to be writing in one, at least she takes studying seriously then. I took a step inside the room and went to speak when-

"I've been waiting for you, Miss Schnee." What?! How could she- "Did you get tired of searching on the web already?"

"How did…?" I was speechless. Did she have bugs in the school? Spies? "How did you know? Is this some kind of Shade thing? Are you trying to scare me?" My thoughts were accelerating out of control as I tried to figure out how she would have known.

"No, you just told me." What? _I_ told her? But how does that… oh she just didn't!

"Ha, ha. Very funny." I deadpanned, glaring at her for messing with me like that.

"It sure is, you were right Nora, it _is_ fun to do this!" Silvia said, turning around and smiling as she spoke. I was glaring at her for still messing around, I need answers. "Ok, serious talk, got it. I noticed that you were eyeing me earlier and decided to hazard a guess."

"That's it? You just guessed?" I asked, skeptical that that was really what happened.

"No, I bugged your Scroll and have at least three ninjas tailing you at all times… Of course I guessed! I'm not some nut job control freak with an information fetish." Silvia huffed, offended.

"O-oh." Oh _wow_ now that I actually thought about it, that does make me seem extremely paranoid.

"Now, what do you want, Weiss?" She asked, as I took a moment to compose myself.

"I want to know what your deal is. " I asked, causing Silvia to sigh. _Great_ , she was going to play the avoidance game, wasn't she.

"My deal?" And now she's playing dumb. I felt the anger rapidly returning.

"You are sending mixed signals! What I found about you says one thing, but what I see from you is another. It's like you can't decide if you really are a Shade from Atlas or a fraud from the streets, just like your combat clothes! They just look so plain and simple, but you had them made from military-grade, reinforced, lightweight fabric! Just… who are you?" I was _really_ running my mouth, before a groan from Ruby managed to derail my train of thought long enough for me to keep quiet as she groggily sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Alright, not telling would do more harm than good at this point, and our teams are more than likely to hang out together anyway, so you'd find out eventually. My name is Silvia Shade, 17 years old, current heiress to the Shade family trade. Not that I know how it works yet. Satisfied?" Silvia explained. I wasn't really buying it though.

"If what you are saying is true, why don't you act like it? Why don't you act more like-" I begun a tirade.

"Like you?" Silvia retorted, leaving me speechless.

"Ohhhhhh, you're gonna need ointment for that one!" I glared at Nora.

"There is a reason for that you know. The SDC is known worldwide, this kind of attitude is almost expected from you. But the Shade family? Only a few people outside of Atlas know about us, I would attract attention, people would get curious and ask questions, like what you are doing right now. That's just something I don't need or want to happen." She had a point, but why was she being so open about it? I was expecting to have to drago it out of her.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" I asked, now thoroughly confused.

"Because you asked?" Silvia bluntly answered.

"That's it? Just because I asked? It's that easy?" It can't be that easy, she's just telling me what i want to hear!

"Oh, WHAT!?" Silvia screeched. "You came here and didn't even expect me to talk? Fine. If you are oh so curious, it's because you wouldn't stop looking. You came _here_ to ask, that shows just how desperate you are for answers! If I didn't give them to you, you'd just keep looking your own way, and eventually draw attention to me that way. So there. You asked, and it's easier if I answer than if I don't."

"Sheesh, Silvia, when did you get so snappy? That was kinda harsh, don't you think?" Nora chastised Silvia, to my slight amusement.

"Oh, don't you start. I'm tired, frustrated and if I take anymore coffee I'll start twitching. And who's fau-" Silvia's scroll started beeping to the tune of some song I didn't recognize, interrupting her.

"Seriously Silvia? The Grimm Files?" Nora chuckled.

"Ah, what now?" She growled out, I'm now kinda happy the spazz is here to catch the fallout. Silvia soon took a deep breath, probably to calm down a bit. I was at this point just waiting on what will come from this.

"I have to go." Silvia sighed in frustration "Nora, Weiss, sorry for snapping at you, but I really didn't have a good day today. And now I got called up to Headmaster Ozpin for some reason. So just… please don't tell anyone about what we talked about?"

"Why would the Headmaster want to see you?" I asked, thoroughly stumped on _why_ Ozpin would want her.

"I have an idea, not that I like it. Can I trust you to keep quiet?" She pleaded, picking up two of the books she had laid out. She also took her coat for some reason, the same one she had on during initiation, and put the books in some inner pockets.

"Well… alright, but you better answer some more questions later." I demanded, because I was getting some answers or so dust help me...

"Sure, sure, just not today. You can spend that time discussing with the others." What does she mean by 'others'? She just asked to not tell anyone! Just as I was about to ask what was she talking about, she opened the door, causing someone to tumble into the room after clearly listening in on what was being said. Looking at who it was, I saw Yang and Jaune laying on the ground, the rest of our teammates were in the hallway and surrounding the door.

"Hey there! Hope you don't mind us _dropping in_ , your highness." Yang said, grinning before a pillow smacked her square in the face.

"How did you..." I began, before Silvia finished my sentence for me.

"Know they were there? Shadows under the door. You pick up on these thing after a while." Silvia said, seemingly disinterested as she stepped over Yang and out the door.

* * *

 **Once again, sorry for the delay.**

 **Me and Gman will try to get the next one out faster. Though we are both curious what do you think about the story so far. Next chapter might answer some questions some of you might have.**


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